A DANGEROUS driver who ran red lights and reached speeds more than double the limit through Bradford city centre while being pursued by police has been jailed.
Richard Andrew, 39, was behind the wheel of a red Audi TT on November 5, last year, when he was spotted by officers on duty in John Street in the centre of Bradford.
They had been alerted to the distinctive vehicle earlier in the day, and as they followed him, and he turned onto Westgate, and later Sunbridge Road, Andrew failed to stop.
In fact, he sped up, the court heard, ignored a lane closure due to roadworks, and began what was described by the judge in the case as “dangerous manoeuvres”.
Andrew, of Watkin Avenue, Thornton, Bradford, was said to have forced another car to take evasive action, avoided a queue of traffic by mounting the kerb and driving down the inside of the waiting vehicles.
Prosecutor Ms Heyworth told Bradford Crown Court that he momentarily stopped on Sunbridge Road, allowing one of the officers to shout out of the window, but he ignored them and continued.
At one point he hit the bumper of another vehicle in a “glancing blow” at a roundabout on City Road, before turning onto Sunbridge Road and reaching speeds of 65mph in a 30 zone.
He later ran straight through a red light while turning onto the busy Hamm Strasse main road, before abandoning his car in the car park of Manningham Lane Retail Park and running off.
Officers managed to catch up with Andrew and arrested him in the middle of the road.
The court heard how he was subject to a suspended sentence order at the time of the offence, which had since expired.
Jeremy Hill-Baker, for Andrew, said that he had completed all the community requirements of the order, and urged the judge not to activate the 18 months of suspended sentence.
He said: “He was not in fact over the prescribed limit which he feared that he was. That act of stupidity places him in some jeopardy.”
Recorder David Gordon said Andrew had multiple previous convictions, including a dangerous driving conviction as a youth.
He said the police dashcam footage played to the court effectively showed Andrew’s dangerous driving, adding: “You made a deliberate decision to ignore the rules of the road.”
The Recorder sentenced Andrew to ten months imprisonment and banned him from driving for two years and five months.
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