A YOUNG Rugby mother had to make a split-second decision whether to go forward or back as a stolen car came hurtling towards her and as she crossed the road with her baby son.
Fortunately she made the right choice and stepped back towards the kerb as Eamon McCarthy passed just a metre in front of her in the stolen VW Passat.
The 23-year-old then led the police on a chase which was so dangerous an officer abandoned the pursuit because of concerns for the safety of other people, a judge at Warwick Crown Court has heard.
McCarthy, of Cavendish Road, Leicester, was jailed for eight months, consecutive to a sentence he is already serving, after pleading guilty to dangerous driving.
Prosecutor Richard Franck said on March 17 last year the police were alerted to a VW Passat which had been seen in Rugby town centre at around 1.30pm.
Its route was followed by CCTV cameras to Spring Street, where two officers attended in a police car and saw it parked, unoccupied, between two other vehicles.
McCarthy and another man then ran back to the Passat, jumped in it and tried to drive off as the officers got out of their car and walked towards it.
First McCarthy, revving the engine, drove forward into a BMW in front of him, reversed and drove off along the pavement before hitting a brick wall.
He reversed again, hitting a Mercedes, and then accelerated forward into a lamppost as one of the officers struck the windscreen with his baton, shouting at him to stop.
McCarthy reversed away from the lamppost, hitting the officer, then drove straight towards the police car, forcing the other officer to jump out of the way as the Passat hit the police vehicle.
He sped away, and then turned into Clifton Road where a young mother was crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing, with her seven-month-old son in a pushchair, when she heard the sound of screeching tyres and saw the Passat coming towards them.
“She had to make a split-second decision whether to go forward or back. She instinctively decided to go back – and it was fortunate she did, because it passed just a metre in front of them,” said Mr Franck.
The Passat carried on, going onto the wrong side of the road and through a red light, and headed towards Lutterworth, overtaking an HGV on a blind bend, after which the pursuit was abandoned because of safety concerns.
The Passat was later found abandoned on a pub car park, 11 miles from where it had first been seen in Rugby.
By the time McCarthy had been identified as the driver, he was serving a 28-month prison sentence imposed in June last year for the theft of another car, added Mr Franck.
Jailing McCarthy, Judge Peter Cooke told him: “From the antics you performed at the wheel of this car, it is apparent that, at least at that time, you had a lot of growing up to do.
