RICHARD Barnes was on parole and had just led police on a pursuit when he sped through a stop sign at Hamilton, ploughing into a ute and injuring himself and three other passengers.
He then fled on foot, leaving one of his passengers seriously injured, and climbed onto the roof of the nearby Newcastle bus terminal.
Badly injured and agitated, Barnes was desperate not to return to jail but was ultimately talked down by a police negotiator.
Barnes, now 39, appeared in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday via audio visual link from Lithgow Correctional Centre where he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm.
Other charges of failing to stop and assist after the crash and police pursuit will be taken into account when he is sentenced in Newcastle District Court later in the year. Police in an unmarked car initially spotted Barnes driving an unregistered and uninsured Suzuki in Beaumont Street about 11am on November 11 last year.
They followed him and turned on their lights and sirens in Gordon Avenue to pull him over but Barnes sped off.
When police lost sight of Barnes as he sped through intersections and blew through stop signs they decided to terminate the pursuit. But Barnes kept speeding and driving dangerously.
Other motorists later told police they saw Barnes running red lights, speeding and pulling out in front of them.
A short time later, two men in a Toyota HiLux were heading along Denison Street when the Suzuki sped through the stop sign in Lawson Street and ploughed into the HiLux.
A witness described seeing the Suzuki get airborne after the impact before rolling and crashing into a power pole.
The HiLux spun out of control but both men in the vehicle were not seriously injured. With one of his backseat passengers trapped by her seatbelt and seriously injured, Barnes and the other two passengers got out of the car and fled on foot towards the bus terminal.
The female passenger suffered a lacerated spleen, perforated bowel, a collapsed lung and was placed into a medically induced coma.
