A MAN who drove a stolen car at a police officer before crashing it into a wall has avoided jail due to spending more than a year since the offence on an electronic tag.

Declan Shand, 27, was followed by police after being seen driving a Skoda Octavia on Ellers Road in Sutton on April 17 last year.

The vehicle was being sought having been reported stolen from a couple living in the Addingham area at some point during the previous 24 hours.

Prosecutor Adbul Shakoor told Bradford Crown Court that officers followed Shand into a pub car park and tried to block him in as he parked up.

In response, he reversed the Skoda into the police car and then “rammed” into it.

As a police officer tried to approach his vehicle, the defendant reversed into a wooden post before then driving forward at the man. While jumping clear to avoid being hit, the officer managed to use his baton to crack the windscreen of Shand’s car.

A chase then ensued, with the defendant reaching speeds of up to 70mph on Ellers Road before continuing onto Tarn Lane and Back Lane, turning his headlights off at one point.

Mr Shakoor said that as Shand attempted to turn into Chapel Lane he hit a stone wall.

The court heard that there was no evidence that Shand, of North Dean Road, Keighley, had been involved in the theft of the Skoda.

He pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving and driving without a licence or insurance on the day of a proposed trial.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, was told that Shand had been the subject of an electronic ten-hour curfew since April 2017, a period of around 13 months.

Alistair McGonigal, defending, said his client, who the court heard acts as a paid carer for his unwell mother, had not breached the terms of his curfew and did not have a “bad record”, citing no previous driving-related offences.

Judge Durham Hall said that the qualifying curfew period would account for the custodial sentence he would have passed of around 13 months.

He told Mr McGonigal: “If I pass the sentence I have in mind, he’s served it, almost. If I lock him up, he’s out in a matter of days.”

The judge said by taking the “unusual” option of imposing a 12-month community order with 150 hours unpaid work, he could pass a “robust” sentence without “breaching the trust of people” in West and North Yorkshire.

He said of the sentence: “It seems to me I have no alternative. If it wasn’t for the qualifying curfew, I wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

He told Shand: “You’ve been on a qualifying curfew and you’ve kept to it. If I do send you to prison for the appropriate level of time, you just walk away, which is not the purpose of the system.”

Shand was also banned from driving for 18 months and must take an extended re-test before obtaining a licence.