A TEENAGER left a friend brain damaged when he crashed while “driving like an idiot”.

Jamie Middleton, then 18, had only been qualified for three months when he got behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Astra he had bought for £700 and modified, Leeds Crown Court heard.

He was taking four friends from the Goole area to Xscape at Castleford, but crashed when a tyre blew on the M62. The car careered across the carriageway and rolled several times before ending up in a ditch.

Judge Christopher Batty said a tracker recorded he was doing an average speed of 93mph, at one point reaching 107mph, during the danger drive on December 28, 2013.

Just ten months later, despite the tragedy, Middleton led police on a high-speed chase through Selby and surrounding villages, reaching up to 60mph in a 30mph zone, then 80mph on country roads. Dog walkers and other pedestrians has to flee as he careered through the district, before turning into a no-entry road at Scalm Park Golf Club, where he was arrested.

Judge Batty said he found it “staggering” with his friend injured in the way he was that Middleton could drive “like that so soon.”

John Smithson, the friend who suffered the life changing injuries in the M62 crash, had told Middleton that he put his seat belt on because his friend was "driving like an idiot", the judge said. He told Middleton: "You ignored him and continued to do so."

The judge said it might have been the heat from the speed that caused the tyre to blow, near Featherstone.

All five in the car were injured but Mr Smithson, who was sitting behind the front seat passenger, was found unconscious with serious head injuries and multiple fractures.

He spent three weeks on a life support machine at Leeds General Infirmary and at one stage it was feared he would never regain consciousness.

Judge Batty said although he was now in the brain injury rehabilitation unit at Goole Hospital he is severely mentally impaired and will require care for the rest of his life.

“Before this he was a 20-year-old man with a successful career as an IT technician at a local school but was hoping to join the RAF and kept fit for that reason.

“He is now wheelchair bound and has difficulty moving his arms. He requires assistance in the most basic of functions.”

He told Middleton: “He and his family will live with the consequences of your actions for the rest of his life.”

Nigel Wray, prosecuting, told the court that in addition to the degraded tyre, the front nearside tyre had a tread depth below the legal limit.

He said Middleton, of Ridding Lane, Rawcliffe, Goole, had not yet been charged over the M62 crash, when he embarked on the police chase near Selby on October 23 last year.

He was in an uninsured Volkswagen Golf when officers began to follow him. He drove dangerously in Haigh Street, White Street, Flaxley Road, Bondgate and Monk Lane in Selby, reaching up to 60mph in a 30mph area.

He then drove through country roads in the villages of Wistow and Cawood reaching up to 80mph.

Rob Casey for Middleton said he had suffered a broken nose, fractured elbow and finger in the crash but that was nothing to the catastrophic injuries suffered by his friend.

“He is extremely sorry for what happened,” he said. He said Middleton knew he had been foolish to drive without insurance last year but had recently got that car and was under pressure to go to see his recently born child.

Middleton, now 19, admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving to Mr Smithson in 2013 and dangerous driving and having no insurance last October.

He was sent to a young offender institution for three years and eight months, and disqualified from driving for three years.