Joy ride punished with jail spell

12:19pm Wednesday 11th July 2007

A JOYRIDER is behind bars after he crashed a stolen car into a roundabout in Chelmsford.

Seth Lee, 20, a tree surgeon from Wood Corner Caravan Park, Woodham Walter, admitted to taking a vehicle without consent, driving without insurance, and causing less than £5,000 damage.

On Thursday July 5, Witham magistrates heard how Lee had stolen a black BMW on the morning of Tuesday May 15, in Tamdown Way, Braintree.

Frank O'Toole, prosecuting, said: "CCTV showed three males approaching the BMW, and then showed two males getting into the vehicle. The keys were inside."

At 11.50am, a police officer in New Nabbotts Way, Chelmsford, saw the vehicle being driven erratically, at speeds of up to 70mph in a housing area.

The officer gave chase and at the junction of New Nabbotts Way and White Hart Lane the vehicle lost control and mounted a roundabout.

Lee left the car and ran off, but a police officer caught up with him in a small alleyway on Martingale Drive.

Lee and a teenage boy were arrested at the scene by police.

Paul Donegan, mitigating, asked magistrates to take Lee's early guilty plea into account.

He was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, and disqualified from driving for 12 months.