A GUNMAN who threatened to shoot a taxi driver in an attempted robbery before going on the run has been jailed for more than 10 years.

Mark Anthony Ainsley, 28, climbed into the back of driver Colin Metcalfe’s Hackney carriage vehicle in Haxby Road, York, and demanded cash at gunpoint.

Rather than comply, Mr Metcalfe - a champion driver of modified saloons - saw the road was almost empty, and instead drove at speed along Clarence Street and Gillygate, keeping his hand on the vehicle’s horn to draw attention.

The court heard Ainsley repeatedly threatened to shoot Mr Metcalfe, before he slammed on the brakes in Exhibition Square, and Ainsley got out and fled the scene.

The court heard Mr Metcalfe suffered flashbacks to the attempted robbery for weeks after the incident, on the evening of May 14 this year, and still felt nervous when he passed the scene.

He said: “For weeks afterwards, I was waking up from sleep and all I could see was a gun pointing at me and the voice saying and shouting ‘I’ll shoot you, I’ll shoot you’.”

Mr Metcalfe said the incident had also affected his wife and one of his sons, who also work as taxi drivers, and he no longer felt safe working throughout the night.

He said: “All in all, everyone in the family has suffered as a result of what Mark Anthony Ainsley has done to me. Every time I go down Haxby Road, even when I am not working, the events all come back to me and I do not suppose I will ever forget it.”

Oliver Thorne, prosecuting, told York Crown Court that Ainsley was arrested in York by armed police at about 8pm on Wednesday, May 17, but during transportation to the police station “deliberately hit his head on the bars in the police van”, and was taken to hospital.

Despite being handcuffed throughout treatment, while he was being escorted to the police van at about 3.30am the following day, he pulled himself from the officers’ grip, and ran away - sparking a five day manhunt which called out the police helicopter and saw police dogs and armed officers on the streets of York.

He was eventually recaptured at an address in Harrogate on the afternoon of Monday, May 22.

Victoria Smith-Swain, for Ainsley, said the imitation weapon was not a physical threat, and the robbery attempt had not been successful. She said Ainsley had admitted the escape at an early opportunity.

The court heard Ainsley, of Wilberforce Avenue, Clifton, York, had previously attempted to escape the dock at York Magistrates’ Court on Christmas Eve, 2013.

At York Crown Court on Tuesday, he was surrounded in the dock by four security guards, with two more inside the courtroom.

The court heard Ainsley had built up large debts through a drug habit and had agreed to take possession of the handgun from an unnamed individual, as a way to clear some of them. The weapon was later found wrapped in a bin bag outside a York house.

The Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, jailed Ainsley for 10 years and eight months, and praised Mr Metcalfe’s actions, telling Ainsley “the fact you did not manage to rob him is nothing to do with you, it is down to his behaviour”.

He said: “It is a chilling aspect of the case, production of an extremely realistic handgun which obviously the taxi driver had no way of knowing was an imitation weapon. It is actually the first occasion I have had to deal with an armed robbery of this type.

“Anyone who robs a taxi driver in this city can expect a significant custodial sentence but what sets your case apart from the general type of robbery offence the court has to deal with is the production of this very lifelike, realistic looking imitation firearm.”

Ainsley was sentenced to 10 years for attempted robbery and eight months for escaping lawful custody, to be served consecutively, and two years for possession of a firearm, to be served concurrently.