THE car criminal who ended up tied to a lawnmower when he broke into a North Yorkshire home has been jailed for 15 months.

Drug-addicted burglar Michael Kenneth Gath, 18, has lost the freedom he won when Leeds magistrates put him on a drug testing and treatment order instead of jailing him for the raid and other crimes.

He was before the magistrates because civil servant Ian Fairwood had made a citizen's arrest when he caught him sitting in his wife's car at 5.45am outside their home in Helperby, Easingwold, and tied him to a lawnmower until police arrived.

But within a month of getting the drug order, the teenager snatched a car at Ryther, near Cawood, shortly before 5am on July 13 while high on Ecstasy. He fled from police at speeds of up to 80mph for eight to ten miles.

Gath, of East Grange Rise, Belle Isle, Leeds, pleaded guilty to aggravated car snatching, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance.

At York Crown Court, sitting in Leeds, Judge John Bullimore said: "All those who drive vehicles and fail to respond to signs from the police to stop ... must go into custody," and jailed Gath for 15 months. He revoked the drug order.

Gath's barrister Nurinder Sekhon said he had initially doubted the order would help him, but had now changed his mind. The car snatching had been an opportunistic crime when he had taken Ecstasy and was very upset by some personal bad news.

Martin Haigh, prosecuting, said that as Gath drove the Ryther car out of the drive, the noise woke its owner, Ian Smith, who alerted police. They lay in wait for him at the junction of the A162 and B1223. When they tried to stop him, he escaped by driving the wrong way round a roundabout then drove at speed to Leeds, where he surrendered.

Updated: 09:38 Saturday, August 16, 2003