A YOUNG motorist whose driving put his teenage friend in a coma for six days and left him with a catalogue of major injuries has been jailed.

Joshua John Wilks, then 19, had two passengers in his Audi as he sped through a North Yorkshire village “like a rocket” at more than twice the speed limit and crashed into two trees, said Judge Sean Morris.

“They are lucky to be alive and so are you,” he told Wilks at York Crown Court.

He said he had to deter other young drivers who drove on North Yorkshire country roads as Wilks had.

Wilks, now 20, of Wood Lane, Leeds, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and was jailed for 27 months.

He was also banned from driving for four years and one month and ordered to take an extended driving test.

Philip Adams, prosecuting, said Wilks drove at between 70mph and 75mph through the 30 mph zone of Hirst Courtney near Selby at about 8pm on June 25, 2018.

As he left the village, straddling the central line, he had to swerve to narrowly miss a car coming the other way, lost control, became airborne, hit the verge on both sides and crashed into a small and a mature tree.

The 17-year-old back seat passenger suffered a collapsed lung and other internal injuries, a brain injury, and a broken collar bone, pelvis, leg, arms, hand and other bones.

Wilks claimed to police the other driver had been to blame.

The victim’s father said he had been in an induced coma for six days, in hospital for five more weeks and a rehabilitation unit for seven.

He still had very regular therapy and other medical appointments and was a changed man with potentially life lasting loss of short term memory.

For Wilks, Chris Smith said he punished himself every day because he had to live with what he had done to his friend and his first thought at the scene had been for the victim.

The accident had led to him becoming more mature.