Jail for Sheffield man who drove wrong way up M1 in coke-fuelled 125mph police chase

A police officer patrolling in Sheffield on April 25, 2023, stopped the Vauxhall Astra being driven by Thomas Garfitt, on Savile Street in the city centre, after his suspicions were raised and checks showed the vehicle was registered to a woman, prosecutor, David Eager, told Sheffield Crown Court.

Mr Eager said Garfitt, of Walling Street, Wincobank, initially stopped as requested by the officer at around 8pm, before ‘driving off at speed,’ prompting the officer to pursue him.

Summarising the details of the dangerous driving that followed, the judge, Recorder Felicity Davies, told the 28-year-old: “You drove through Sheffield, towards the motorway, at highly excessive speeds pursued by [the police officer]. They were urban roads, in built up areas. You ignored a series of red lights, you drove in the path of oncoming vehicles.”

The first police officer was joined by tactical support officers, and at one stage Garfitt was being pursued by at least six police vehicles, as well as a police helicopter, the court heard during a hearing held on May 17, 2023.

Recorder Davies continued: “You went on to the M1, and at points, the pursuing officer reached speeds of 125mph without gaining ground on you.”

“When the officer dropped his speed to 90mph, you made an enormous gaining distance,” she said.

“You drove northbound on the southbound carriageway [of the M1] on the hard shoulder, passing a number of vehicles, you continued for quite some distance, before driving into the carriageway proper and doing a handbrake turn, in which you spun the vehicle through 180 degrees into the centre of the carriageway – where you just missed another vehicle,” added Recorder Davies.

The tactical support officers pursuing Garfitt were forced to stop when he began travelling northbound on the southbound carriageway, ‘realising, of course, that it would endanger their lives,’ Mr Eager said.

The chase, which lasted 27 minutes, came to an end when Garfitt eventually pulled over. During a road-side test he tested positive for cocaine, but then refused to take a follow-up blood test, the court heard.

Mr Eager told the court that Garfitt has nine previous convictions for 29 offences, two of which were for dangerous driving, and at the time of the police chase he was disqualified from driving.

Garfitt was subsequently charged with, and pleaded guilty to, offences of dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and failure to provide a specimen at an earlier hearing.

Defending, Dermot Hughes, said he acknowledged it was a ‘minor miracle’ Garfitt’s driving had not resulted in ‘serious injury or harm,’ and stated that Garfitt was driving to pick up his prescription at the time he was stopped, suggesting that the dangerous driving that followed was borne out of ‘stupidity and blind panic’.

He continued by saying that while Garfitt’s previous offending may have indicated ‘he was on the fast track to throwing away his youth and young adulthood away,’ there has been a ‘remarkable’ change in his character, and he has now ‘turned his life around’.

Mr Hughes said Garfitt realises that while he is the one who must be punished, it is his partner and their new child who will ‘suffer the most,’ and urged Recorder Davies to temper any sentence passed with an ‘element of mercy’.

Jailing Garfitt for 20 months, Recorder Davies told him it was ‘among the worst examples of dangerous driving’ she has heard of, adding that it was ‘miraculous’ no-one had been injured.

Recorder Davies also banned Garfitt from driving for four years, 10 months.