A YOUNG driver who flew over speed bumps in a residential street at 80mph and raced past a school and a play area at 60 as he tried to escape from the police has been jailed.
Callum Taylor appeared at Warwick Crown Court after pleading guilty to dangerous driving, having no insurance or licence and failing to stop for the police.
Taylor, age 20, of no fixed address, but formerly of Binswood Avenue, Leamington, was jailed for 14 months and banned from driving for three-and-a-half years.
Prosecutor Adrian Fleming said that at 12.30pm on March 13 police officers in Ennerdale, Brownsover, Rugby, saw a Peugeot coming in the opposite direction at speed and on the wrong side of the road.
They turned their car round and began to follow it, putting on their blue light to try to get it to stop.
But Taylor in the Peugeot ignored them and sped away, triggering a high-speed pursuit which lasted around 14 minutes.
The Peugeot reached 60mph in the 30mph-limit residential zone as he headed along Hollowell Way and took a sharp turn onto Newton Manor Lane.
After negotiating one traffic island at the junction with Coton Park Drive, Taylor went all the way round the roundabout on the A46 and then back along Newton Manor Lane.
As he approached the island at Coton Park Drive for a second time, he pulled onto the off-side of the road and went the wrong way round it at about 60mph, forcing oncoming cars to brake.
After going through temporary traffic lights which were on red, he sped along Crowthorns at 70mph, and through another red light as he drove all the way round and back to Newton Manor Road.
Taylor was having to repeatedly brake hard, skidding as he did so, to avoid other traffic, and one oncoming driver had to swerve onto the grass verge to avoid a collision.
When he reached Newton Road he head towards Clifton-on-Dunsmore where he drove through a 20mph zone past a junior school and a children’s play area at 60mph.
He then headed back towards Rugby, doing 70mph along Butlers Leap where he overtook on a blind bend before going through another red light, almost hitting another car.
In Boughton Road he again reached 60 in a 20mph zone before turning into Crowthorns where he sped along a grass verge to avoid a second police car which was trying to block his way, forcing a mother and child to jump out of his way.
After turning into Helvellyn Way he stalled, but as the police car pulled up alongside, he got it started and reversed before speeding off along Bow Fell, again going onto a verge.
He headed through the residential area and over speed bumps at speeds in excess of 80mph.
But as he headed toward a traffic-calming single-file section of road an oncoming car with right-of-way stopped dead, which also forced Taylor to stop.
The pursuing police car pulled up behind him, and Taylor reversed into it before getting out of the Peugeot and running off – but he was caught and arrested, added Mr Fleming.
