A JUDGE who warned a “lunatic” danger driver he would lock him up if they met again has kept his word after the teenager was caught behind the wheel while banned and uninsured.
Luke Lanham, 19, chose to ignore a suspended sentence order imposed at Bradford Crown Court in October last year that disqualified him from driving for 18 months.
Lanham, of Cavendish Road, Thorpe Edge, Bradford, was spotted by the police driving a Daewoo Matiz in Eccleshill on August 25, prosecutor Paul Nicholson said yesterday.
The teenager admitted driving while disqualified and without insurance in breach of a 12 month custodial sentence, suspended for two years.
His barrister, Mark Brookes, said Lanham was a vulnerable young man with learning difficulties. Judge Jonathan Rose conceded that Lanham had ADHD but told him: “You chose to drive in breach of a court order.”
Lanham was sent to a young offender institution for a total of 12 months. Ten months of the suspended sentence was activated, because he had successfully completed a six month curfew order and a rehabilitation activity requirement, but two months were added consecutively for the new offence of driving while disqualified. Lanham was sentenced on October 13 last year for dangerous driving, and driving without a licence or insurance, after leading the police on a daylight chase in a Ford Ka along some of Bradford’s busiest streets.
He went up to 70mph on a pursuit that took in Midland Road, Queens Road, and Station Road, running ran red lights and narrowly avoided collisions. After driving at 70mph down the wrong side of a 30mph section of Canal Road, he avoided a ‘boxing-in’ manoeuvre by officers on Valley Road by driving up a grass verge on to Bolton Road.
Judge Rose told him then: “This city is rife with people like you who should not be driving at all. People who buy cars cheaply with no insurance, licence, or ability. They drive like lunatics through our streets, putting people at risk of serious injury or death.”
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