A motorist who drove off after crashing into a lamppost and having his tyres punctured during a police chase is today behind bars.

Ethan Jaake Bodally, 24, was at the wheel of a stolen Land Rover Defender when police spotted him in the early hours of December 14, and told him to pull over, said Michael Cahill, prosecuting.

During the police chase that followed along the A59 towards York and round the York Outer Ring Road, he hit 50mph in a 30mph zone, drove on the wrong side of the road and went the wrong way round a roundabout as well as crashing twice.

He was on parole from sentences for drug dealing and burglary at the time and his actions scuppered his plans to work on the railways, York Crown Court heard.

Jailing him for 10 months, Judge Simon Hickey told Bodally: “It’s your choice whether you commit these offences and continue to be incarcerated.”

He also banned Bodally from driving for 29 months and ordered him to take an extended driving test before driving alone again.

Bodally, of Poole Crescent, Crossgates, Leeds,  pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, aggravated taking of a vehicle, driving without a licence and without insurance.

He was making his third appearance before York Crown Court in five years, at which he has now been given sentences totalling 88 months.

Mr Cahill said a HGV driver alerted police that a quad bike was being ridden along the A168 without lights at 2am on December 14.

Suspecting that thieves were at work targeting rural properties, officers lay in wait at the junction of the A168 and A59 and spotted Bodally, whom they believed was driving in convoy with the stolen quad bike.

He made off at speed towards York, crashing into a lamppost.

“That didn’t deter the driver, who continued to fail to stop and continued to drive on the wrong side of the road,” said Mr Cahill.

Police successfully used a stinger to deflate all the Land Rover’s tyres outside Huntington Fire Station.

“The driver continued to make off before losing control, going through a wooden fence and coming to a stop in a field,” said Mr Cahill.

Police checks revealed the Land Rover had been stolen that night from a farm, as had two quad bikes.

For Bodally, Michele Turner said he had used his time productively in prison getting trusted posts inside. Released on parole, probation officers had placed him on a 12-week course to get a railway qualification and the prospect of a guaranteed job. But that had now gone.

“He has thrown away every opportunity he had worked so hard for to achieve,” she said.

He had made a “foolish error” on December 14 and had panicked when the police put on their blue lights and sounded their siren.