Newly-passed Sheffield teenage driver spared from time behind bars after he fled from police

Motorist Abid Ali, aged 18, of Titterton Street, Attercliffe, Sheffield, fled from police in a Hyundai Getz at speed through three sets of traffic lights and collided with another vehicle, according to a Sheffield Crown Court hearing on May 24.

The judge, Recorder Jeremy Barnett, told Ali: “You are a young man who recently passed your test and you had no insurance and police wanted to stop you and you panicked and drove off.

“The fact is that anybody who drives like you did through three sets of traffic lights and speeding and narrowly avoided a head-on collision - and in fact you hit another vehicle pushing it into another barrier... you are asking to be locked up.”

Ali pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and to driving without insurance after the incident on Greenland Road, Darnall, Sheffield, on September 15, 2021, which happened just over two weeks after his 18th birthday.

Recorder Barnett accepted Ali has since been doing well with his life and the defendant’s employer provided him with a favourable reference.

The judge added that anybody who drives dangerously in an attempt to evade detection from the police should be locked-up but in Ali’s case he was prepared to make an exception due to the fact these were his first matters before a court.

He told Ali he was prepared to give him an “opportunity” and he sentenced him to an 18 month community order with 40 hours of unpaid work and disqualified him from driving for three years.

Recorder Barnett said the length of the disqualification signified the seriousness of Ali’s offending.

He told Ali: “That to my mind is the mark of the seriousness of anybody who drives dangerously when the police have invited them to pull over.”

However, Recorder Barnett warned Ali that if he commits a similar further offence he faces being put behind bars as he indicated the court doorway to the cells.

He told the defendant: “If you breach this community order by any other offence, and I am certain if you come back with another case like this, you will be leaving through that door.”