Persistent banned driver fled police on shredded tyres

Heavy cannabis user Nicholas James Alexander Ellis-Fleming had the tyres of his Hyundai burst by police after he refused to pull over in Castleford on the evening of August 5, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Kristina Goodwin told the court that he drove along the kerb on High Oxford Street and ignored no entry signs on Lower Oxford Street as he struggled to keep control of the vehicle.

The two shredded front tyres became detached and Ellis-Fleming narrowly missed a car as smoke poured from the wheel rims.

The 29-year-old eventually got out and tried to run but was quickly detained as he jumped and slipped across the bonnet of the pursuing police vehicle.

He gave a largely no-comment interview with police, but did admit a bag of cannabis found on him was his, and that he spent around £350 a month on the drug.

The court was told he has six convictions for 12 offences, including being banned from driving earlier this year for being over the drug-drive limit for cannabis.

He was then caught again in the summer driving while banned and being being over the limit for cannabis.

For this latest appearance, he admitted dangerous driving, driving while banned, without insurance and possession of cannabis.

Mitigating, Joseph Hudson told the court that Ellis-Fleming, of Spittal Hardwick Lane in Castleford, was still struggling two years after the death of his mother.

He said: "He is plainly a man who can't be trusted behind the wheel of a car.

"He had a difficult upbringing followed by an intensely difficult few years. This was a man who was seriously, at the time, contemplating suicide.

"He is still a young man trying to find his way in life."

Judge Rodney Jameson QC told him it was too soon after his last offence of driving while banned for it be anything other than an immediate prison sentence.

He jailed him for 12 months, banned from driving for 30 months and ordered to take an extended re-test when the ban expires.