A DANGEROUS driver led police on a chase from Coventry towards Rugby – even after his tyres had been punctured.
When police spotted a suspected stolen car which was being driven on cloned number plates, they tried to stop it by putting down a stinger mat.
But even though all four tyres were punctured, driver David Roddie was able to keep going – because the Mercedes sports car had been fitted with run-flat tyres.
Eventually the police blocked the car and the 37 year-old of Bridgeacre Gardens, Coventry, was arrested.
And at Warwick Crown Court he was jailed for 14 months and banned for 37 months after he had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and having no insurance.
Prosecutor Anthony Cartin said on a Sunday afternoon in November last year a Mercedes sports car activated an ANPR camera as it headed out of Coventry towards Rugby.
There was a ‘marker’ on the car, which had been stolen in a burglary in Nuneaton and was on the cloned plates of a similar car in Derby, because of an incident the previous day.
Police laid a stinger across the A428, and all four tyres were punctured – but because it had run-flat tyres, it continued.
During the chase Roddie squeezed the Mercedes between two vehicles waiting at a roundabout and went through two red lights, causing other drivers to take evasive action.
He was eventually blocked in by police cars in a tresidential street and arrested.
Mr Cartin added Roddie had 13 previous convictions for 33 offences, and in 2013 he had been jailed for 20 months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Raj Deu, defending, said the reason the case had taken so long to be dealt with was that Roddie had originally been charged with aggravated vehicle taking.
But the court heard that was dropped because it could not be proved Roddie would have known the car had been stolen because it had been two months since it was taken in the burglary.
