THE car thief who sped off with a Premiership footballer’s £150,000 Ferrari has been jailed.

Philip McNamara was charged with aggravated vehicle taking and driving without insurance after he stole Middlesbrough midfielder Gary O’Neil’s black Ferrari F430 Spider F1 from a petrol forecourt, The Press revealed yesterday how the footballer, who was on his way to training at the club, had filled up at the Shell garage in Ripon Road, Harrogate, but left the keys in the ignition when he went to pay.

It was then McNamara, who had recently been released from jail on licence, took the sports car on a high-speed joyride into York.

North Yorkshire Police were alerted after a member of the public spotted the Ferrari on the A59 road between Harrogate and York, overtaking a string of other vehicles at a “very fast speed”.

The car, which has a top speed of 197mph and can do 0 to 60mph in 3.5 seconds, was fitted with a GPS tracking system which enabled police to pinpoint the car’s location.

A quick-thinking officer in an unmarked police car picked up the Ferrari in York, and followed it discreetly, until the driver stopped outside the Elmbank Hotel, near York Racecourse.

McNamara, 28, finally spotted the officer and tried to make his escape by fleeing on foot along Tadcaster Road.

But a number of officers were ready and he was arrested after a short chase, less than an hour after taking the car.

At Harrogate Magistrates Court yesterday, McNamara, of Sibelius Road, Hull, pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to ten weeks in jail and banned from driving for 12 months.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “This is a prime example of an individual who broke the law and posed a risk to other road users discovering he cannot get away with it, and will face the full consequences.”