JAILED: Banned driver struck pedestrian and car after police chase

Jack Davies, who was on bail and awaiting sentence for an earlier episode of dangerous driving, came within a ‘hairs breadth’ of killing somebody, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.

The MG ZR being driven by the 20-year-old hurtled into a silver VW Polo, which had right of way at the traffic light controlled junction of Wednesbury Road and Corporation Street West in Walsall, a judge heard.

The impact sent the MG ZR careering across the road and into pedestrian Dumitru Giobanu, who was hurled into the air and landed on the bonnet of a BMW waiting at the lights, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The driver of the VW, Ms Shahnaz Akhtar, who had to be cut from the wreckage, suffered a broken pelvis together with injuries to her shoulder and right arm.

Fortunately her young daughter, who was in a child seat, was not hurt.

But Ms Tanya Morton, a passenger in the MG, had to be helped from the vehicle with a broken arm and head injuries, while Mr Giobanu badly injured a leg when he was swept off his feet by the by the out-of-control vehicle, revealed Mr Geoffrey Dann, prosecuting.

Disaster struck at 10.45am on September 4 after police thought the MG had a blown exhaust and told the car to stop in Bescot Crescent, Walsall – but the defendant ignored the order and accelerated down Oxford Street.

Davies carried on along Old Peck Road and into Wednesbury Road, where the pursuing police car got caught in traffic and the MG scraped the side of a BMW as it undertook the vehicle moments before the pile up.

The defendant had been given an interim disqualification less than two months earlier, the court heard, and was awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to driving dangerously while under the influence of drugs in a Vauxhall Corsa during a police chase through Willenhall.

That pursuit reached speeds of 90mph in a 30 zone on January 29 last year.

Mr Glenn Cook, defending, said: “He was abusing drugs and had a feeling of invincibility, that he would not be caught, and now faces the consequences.”

Friends had ‘loaned’ him the cars involved in the two offences, it was claimed. Both have been seized.

Davies, from Simmonds Place, Walsall, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and having no insurance together with the earlier offences and was ordered to be detained in a Young Offenders Institution by Judge Amjad Nawaz who said: “You came within a hairs breadth of taking lives.”