A DANGEROUS driver who smashed into three walls and a parked car as he took police on a high-speed chase around a town centre has been jailed.

Shane Calvert caused so much damage to his father’s Audi that it had to be written off by insurers.

Teesside Crown Court heard how he reached speeds of 70mph as he raced around Guisborough for more than ten minutes with the police in hot pursuit.

The 35-year-old managed to escape on foot when the police eventually trapped the vehicle against some bollards at 4am in the morning of August 23 last year.

Calvert was then caught driving whilst disqualified in March this year after police spotted him travelling in an uninsured car.

Judge Recorder Jamie Hill QC told Calvert that his driving was so dangerous that a custodial sentence was the only available option.

He added: “The details of the dangerous driving are particularly bad. It maybe the early hours of the morning but the at speeds at which you were driving down narrow roads, through 30mph areas, jumping red lights, if somebody had been coming the other way or if somebody had been out and about, they would have been in danger.

"Colliding with not one brick wall but three walls being damaged in total and your father's car being written off that is a serious catalogue of dangerous driving."

Tom Mitchell, prosecuting, said Calvert's driving had resulted in his father's car being written off.

Calvert, of, Willow Road, Guisborough, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance.

Lorna Veale, in mitigation, said her client was struggling to come to terms with the death of his mother when he took his father's car out.

She told the court that he was responding to an emergency when he was caught driving whilst disqualified after being given an interim ban after he admitted the dangerous driving charge.

Recorder Hill QC jailed Calvert for 12 months and banned him from driving for 30 months.