A TEENAGER, who drove through Bradford "like a madman," has been locked up.

Luqman Khan drove dangerously at speed, forcing other motorists to take evasive action, as police pursued him.

The chase ended when 19-year-old Khan, who was uninsured and unlicensed, crashed into a parked van and an oncoming car being driven by a woman with a young child passenger. Nobody was hurt.

Sentencing Khan, who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, failing to stop for a police constable, and having no licence or insurance, to 12 months in a young offender institution, Judge Jonathan Rose told him: "You drove like a madman."

The judge added: "This is the sort of driving that terrifies the decent citizens of this city. They expect drivers like you to go to custody."

Prosecutor Duncan Ritchie told Bradford Crown Court that police saw Khan driving a Citroen Saxo in Bowling Back Lane on a busy Tuesday morning. He and his passenger were not wearing seat belts.

The officers illuminated their blue lights to indicate for the defendant to stop.

But Mr Ritchie said: "The defendant failed to do so, and in the pursuit which took place, the defendant drove dangerously at speed along busy roads, causing others to avoid him."

Khan reached speeds of up to 65mph in 30mph limits and drove at speed on to a petrol station forecourt before making off into Leeds Road without stopping.

During the pursuit, which took in streets including Birksland Street, Mount Street, Edderthorpe Street, Fullerton Street, and Leeds Road on several occasions, Khan failed to slow down for junctions, cutting in front of vehicles and forcing them to avoid him, and entered lanes for vehicles travelling in the opposite direction.

Mr Ritchie said the pursuit ended when Khan tried to squeeze through a narrow gap between parked vehicles and a car coming the other way, but collided with both.

He then abandoned the car. The passenger ran off. Khan tried to hide under one of the vehicles, but was arrested at the scene. Damage was caused to the vehicles involved in the collision, but the woman and child in the oncoming car were unhurt.

Nick Leadbeater, solicitor advocate for Khan, who had no previous convictions, said the defendant accepted the standard of his driving was awful. His decision to buy a vehicle when he was not licensed or insured to drive it was "a very poor error of judgement."

Judge Rose told Khan, of Tagore Court, Laisterdyke, Bradford: "You put every other road user, your passenger, and yourself, in danger of serious injury or death.

"You put at risk other motorists, people in the petrol station, a young girl about to step off the pavement when you threw the car around a corner, the police officer who was following you, all of this taking place in the middle of the day on one of the busiest roads in Bradford."

The judge said it was fortunate the woman whose car Khan had hit had not been seriously injured or killed.

Khan was banned from driving for two years.

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