A FORMER amateur boxer who had fought for England ran around topless and shoeless before jumping up and down on top of a car, a court heard.

Luke Lawrence Atkin, 30, jumped four or five times on top of a Suzuki in the forecourt of Arnold Clark Motorstore, York Business Park, in the early hours of March 16, said Martin Butterworth, prosecuting.

He had been running topless and shoeless around the area.

At 4am on March 15, police had warned him not to drive because of the condition he was in, but he had ignored their advice.

They pulled him over as he left the BP garage on Boroughbridge Road.

He had cocaine on him and refused to give a blood sample so police could see if he had been drug driving.

His solicitor Scott McLaughlin said he was schizophrenic and was “acting off the wall” in the business park.

He accepted he had been driving under the influence of drugs the night before and had just wanted to sleep when arrested.

“He has moved to Warrington where he plans to make a fresh start,” said the defence solicitor.

Atkin, formerly of Fifth Avenue, Tang Hall, who boxed for England when younger, pleaded guilty to failure to provide a blood specimen, driving a car without a test certificate, possessing cocaine and damaging the £2,498 Suzuki.

York magistrates gave him an 18-month community order with 10 days’ rehabilitative activities and 200 hours’ unpaid work, and ordered him to pay £170 costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

He was also banned from driving for 18 months.

Mr McLaughlin said the offences had come at the end of a bad week during which Atkin had lost his long-term partner and accommodation.

He was living in his car and had booked into the Premier Inn near the business park after his first arrest.

Atkin had a job lined up in the North-West town to replace the one in York he had lost over the driving incident.

A probation officer said Atkin had told her he had not taken cocaine since his arrest.