Banned driver fleeing from cops in 85mph chase crashed on roundabout outside Sheffield police station
“The message needs to be made clear - when police lights or sirens are activated you stop or you go to prison”
An “inveterate criminal” said “they made me do it” after crashing a car into a roundabout outside a Sheffield police station during a dangerous pursuit, a court heard.
Prolific dangerous driver John Bywater, aged 27, had just been spotted with three male passengers in a Vauxhall registered to a male born in the 1960s.
Officers thought he looked “considerably younger,” said Curtis Dunkley, prosecuting.
After the sighting at the junction of Sheffield Road and Birley Moor Road on April 13, Bywater gunned the car up to 60mph as police officers activated lights and sirens, the barrister told Sheffield Crown Court,
During the pursuit that followed the defendant sped up to 85mph along Moss Way, almost colliding with a van and overtook on a blind bend at 70mph in a 40-mph zone, before driving over a roundabout at Moss Way police station.
Mr Dunkley described how the car was stopped when a tyre burst as it hit the island and its naked rim dug “into the tarmac”.
One of the passengers “jumped” from the moving vehicle and Bywater tried to flee on foot, shouting “they made me do it,” as police caught up with him, said the prosecutor.
Bywater had 20 previous convictions for 44 offences, the court heard, including dangerous driving, driving while banned, unlicensed and uninsured and failing to report an accident, the court heard.
Addressing Judge Peter Hampton via prison video link, Bywater, who sported a bandaged hand following a more recent road traffic collision, said: “I just want to apologise, like, for everything.
“I’ve been in an RTC and it’s opened my eyes to quite a bit mate - I’m 27 years old and sick of being in and out of jail. I need to sort my head out.”
The judge told Bywater: “You simply do not care what damage or harm you could have caused. The message needs to be made clear - when police lights or sirens are activated you stop or you go to prison.
“You are a prolific dangerous driver, you are an inveterate criminal with no respect for the law or your fellow citizens.”
Bywater, formerly of Norfolk Park Road, Sheffield, was jailed for 14 months and handed a driving ban for four years and five months.
He admitted dangerous driving and driving while banned and uninsured.