A young driver behind the wheel of a stolen car drove close to 80mph during a police chase on built up roads before he ran away and was Tasered.

Police spotted a Vauxhall Astra being driven in Prestwich at around midnight on August 12 last year before checks found it had been stolen four days earlier.

Officers followed the car, driven by Christopher Cummings, of George Street South, Salford, as it headed towards Whitefield.

But Cummings, aged 22 at the time, realised he was being tracked and tried to speed away from police at speeds approaching 80mph, more than double the 30mph speed limits, prosecutor Paul Hodgkinson told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court yesterday, Tuesday.

Dashcam footage from a following police car, which captured the dangerous speeds Cummings drove at, was played in court.

During the chase, he drove through two red lights, the wrong way round a roundabout, smashed into a traffic island before abandoning his car, which was seriously damaged and its tyres has been disabled by a police stinger device.

Cummings then abandoned the car and tried to run away from police before he was Tasered and arrested, the court heard.

No-one was hurt and no other cars were damaged during the chase, which included roads such as Bury New Road and Higher Lane.

A small amount of cannabis was found in his possession.

Cummings, now aged 23, had two previous convictions for two offences, involving disqualified driving.

Defending, Adrian Palmer, accepted the nature of the driving and invited a probation officer to tell Recorder Peter Wright KC about the defendant’s past.

Cummings said he had “borrowed” the Astra from someone on a “local estate” and did not know it had been stolen.

He said he “panicked” when he realised he was being followed by police and drove off.

At the time of the offence he was living with his dad in a home surrounding anti-social behaviour before moving to a more “stable environment” with his mum in Blackpool.

It is hoped that he can get a job in construction, an industry he has previously worked in, in the future.

But he spends around £100 a week on cannabis, something he wants to carry on doing, and believes he suffers with anxiety and depression.

After pleading guilty to dangerous driving, driving without a licence and driving without insurance at Manchester and Salford Magistrates Court last December, he failed to turn up for court and breached bail requirements and was later arrested.

Addressing Cummings in the dock, Recorder Wright told him he is the “author of his own misfortune” after failing to previously attend court.

Cummings was jailed for a year, banned from driving for 30 months and ordered to sit an extended retest following the ban.

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