Drink driver rammed off road by police after going 70mph in 30 zone

Remell Glanville had already rammed one patrol car when he ended up broad side across the road after bungling an attempted handbrake turn, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The 27-year-old reversed into the side of a police car that had pursued him through narrow residential streets at more than twice the speed limit.

Then a second patrol car foiled the defendant's escape by shunting the Ford Focus into iron railings in Hill Top, West Bromwich.

Glanville still refused to surrender and kept revving the engine in repeated bids to break free until officers smashed one of the car's windows with a baton and dragged him out, explained Mr Neil Ahuja, prosecuting.

The chase had started in Beverley Road, Stone Cross, when police hunting for the Focus after an earlier incident with a taxi found it parked at 5.50am on December 17.

A second police car joined the chase as Glanville hurtled along Heath Lane at more than 70mph in a 30mph limit before travelling on the wrong side of the road, ignoring a one-way street, surging through red lights and going the wrong way round a traffic island.

At one stage he stopped to allow two passengers to get out before ramming a police car to avoid it boxing him in.

A test later showed he had 43 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

Mr Simon Burch, defending, conceded: "He struggles to explain why he drove in the way he did. He feared he would be in trouble if caught since he knew he had been drinking and had neither insurance nor driving licence.

"He has suffered from depression and paranoia since the death of his mother but does not seek to use this as an excuse for his behaviour."

Glanville, of Grove Lane, Handsworth, who had previous convictions involving 27 offences, admitted dangerous driving, driving with excess alcohol, failing to stop when requested and driving without insurance or a licence.

He was jailed for 14 months and banned from driving for four years, seven months by Judge Barry Berlin, who told him: "The police literally had to push you off the road to stop you."