Stolen car driver jailed after trying to flee pursing police cars after Barnsley incident
A motorist who tried to run down a police officer before trying to flee pursing patrol cars in a car chase, has been jailed.
Dean Cooper, aged 56, of Gosling Gate, Barnsley was sighted by officers on patrol from the Roads Policing Proactive Team last year, on November 7 in an Audi A5 suspected of being driven on false registration plates.
The vehicle was parked along Nanny Marr Road in Darfield. Officers positioned their car to block Cooper in and activated their blue lights, alerting him they wanted to talk to him.
As one officer got out of the police car to speak to the driver, Cooper accelerated and tried to hit the officer with his vehicle, said police, who added the quick-thinking actions of the officer driving the police car meant he moved the car and protected his colleague.
She was thankfully uninjured and quickly got back in to follow Cooper as he fled the scene.
Cooper drove on the wrong side of the road at times as he tried to escape pursuing police, exceeded the speed limit and carried out dangerous manoeuvres, heard Sheffield Crown Court.
Cooper showed no signs of stopping, so the officer used his car in an attempt to push Cooper from the carriageway, but determined not be caught, Cooper travelled over a roundabout and began to head towards on-coming traffic.
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Police again used a car again to push Cooper towards the barrier and bring the pursuit to an end.
The car Cooper was driving was found to be stolen.
Sergeant Adam Renshaw said: “As police officers we see the risks those involved in criminality are willing to take to evade being caught.
“We are committed to removing those who pose a risk through their actions and putting them before the courts.
“Cooper not only showed a complete disregard for our officers’ safety, but he also put other innocent road users at risk.
“As with every shift and response to emergency or incident, officers carry risk. We often put our own safety on the line for our communities, but we should be treated with respect and not targeted.
“We deserve to go home at the end of our shift, and if my officer hadn’t have acted so quickly the outcome of this could have been different, and I am pleased that Cooper will now face time behind bars for his selfish actions.”
Cooper appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Thursday March 4 and was sentenced to six months in prison and disqualified from driving for two and half years and ordered to sit an extended retest.