A SPEEDING driver put lives at risk when he careered the wrong way through busy streets in his brother’s car only days after being released from prison.

Pedestrians had to flee for safety as Daniel Pullman, 22, sped along Cumberland Street late at night in a Citroen Saxo, York Crown Court heard. A judge said he could easily have killed someone.

Pullman, of Bellhouse Way, Foxwood, had been out of prison for only ten days when he took his brother Liam’s car and embarked on his dangerous drive. He has now been jailed again for 15 months.

Police first spotted him going the wrong way down King Street and managed to get him to turn round, but he hit a parked car and after one of his four passengers had got out, he drove off, ignoring police orders to stop.

He drove on the wrong side of Clifford Street, ignored a “no right turn” sign and went through a red light in Coppergate, before eventually writing off the car by crashing into a pedestrian crossing in Malton Road, just after 2.30am.

Helen Wheatley, prosecuting, told the court Pullman had been released part-way through a four-year sentence for arson ten days earlier, when he took the car on the night of November 3.

Liam Pullman only knew the car he had left parked outside his home had been wrecked when he was woken by police.

It was the second time Daniel Pullman had taken a family car without permission.

In 2007, when banned from the family home, he broke in and took his mother’s car.

His barrister, Ruth Cranidge, said his mother and brother now did not want anything to do with him.

Recorder Bryan Cox QC told Pullman: “You put members of the public at risk in a busy part of York city centre and the reality is you could easily have killed someone.”

On top of the jail term, he banned Pullman from driving for three years. Pullman admitted taking the car, aggravated by dangerous driving, driving without insurance and without a licence.

He has already been recalled to prison to serve the rest of his arson sentence.

Miss Cranidge said Pullman had panicked as he knew he should not have been driving.

In 2010, Pullman caused £20,000 damage when he tried to burn down his landlady’s home in Mitchell Way, Clifton Moor, in an argument over money.