A speeding driver “outran” the police in a chase through Widnes as his "high-powered" Volkswagen Golf reached 130mph forcing officers to call off the pursuit.
An unmarked patrol spotted the white VW on Pitt Street “weaving in and out” of traffic towards the Mersey Gateway bridge on the morning of October 13.
Behind the wheel of the Golf was lorry driver Ben Winstanley, 39, who only a month prior had been stopped for drug driving, relating to cannabis and a grinder had been found in his centre console.
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Bernice Campbell, prosecuting at Liverpool Crown Court today, said that as officers followed the Golf at 11.11am on October 13, they spotted it starting to pick up speed.
They turned on their “blues and twos” and tried to pull the car over.
At first the "high-powered" VW hatchback slowed down but then sped away.
Dashcam footage played to the court showed the Golf indicate left and come to a crawl by the kerb but it then darted the opposite way, turning right.
It hurtled down Cromwell Street and turned onto Hutchinson Street, “contravening a stop sign”.
The pursuing police car tried to keep up with Winstanley after losing him briefly across a busy roundabout and as the Golf hopped lanes through busy traffic at the edge of Widnes town centre.
A dashcam clip shown in court showed the Golf jumping a red light.
Soon after, the Cheshire Police speedometer reached 126mph in a 70mph zone as the pursuit roared along Watkinson Way.
With Winstanley hitting 130mph, officers called off the pursuit as it was “too dangerous to continue chasing the vehicle”.
The Golf was abandoned on Barrow’s Green Lane.
Winstanley, an HGV driver by trade, later pleaded guilty to dangerous driving.
Ms Campbell said Winstanley, of Chidlow Close, Widnes, had three previous convictions for six offences, starting in 2013 and the most recent on December 1 relating to the cannabis driving matter on September 13.
She said it was “vague” as to whether he was on bail at the time of the 130mph chase.
Kate Morley, defending, said her client’s best mitigation was his guilty plea, adding Winstanley was “beyond sorry for his stupidity and dangerous behaviour” and felt “shame” and “remorse”.
She said there were “underlying issues relating to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)”, and he “acknowledges that he doesn’t necessarily consider the consequences of his actions before he reacts and he has problems with impulsivity” - which were “complicated with his misuse of cannabis”.
On why Winstanley chose to flee the police, she said: “He accepts he was speeding.
“When he realised officers were attempting to pull him to the side of the road he was panicked.
“He was on his way to a hospital appointment.
“He thought he was going to be detained and made the foolish decision to flee and drive in an appalling manner.”
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She added: “While the speeds are extremely excessive and the driving dangerous, fortuitously no-one was injured, nor was any damage caused.”
Ms Morley said Winstanley had lost his job as an HGV driver as a result of his conviction and was subjected to a driving disqualification awaiting sentence.
He had stopped using cannabis and was seeking help from his GP for ADHD.
Judge Denis Watson, QC, said the offence was too serious for anything other than an immediate custodial sentence to be imposed and jailed Winstanley for 24 weeks, banned him from driving for 15 months with a mandatory retest and ordered him to pay £340 to prosecution costs plus a statutory surcharge.
He said Winstanley had “succeeded in outrunning the police in Widnes” and the dashcam footage was “extremely illuminating”.
Speculating as to why Winstanley fled, the judge dismissed alcohol as a possibility and said “we will never know” if it was due to cannabis because the Golf “outran” its pursuers.
Sending down Winstanley, Judge Watson said: “The pursuit was something in the order of two-and-a-half miles by my estimate and because of the extremely high speed lasted possibly something in the order of three minutes, at times through narrow streets, at times on dual carriageways which are around the area of Widnes, but the police were pursuing you.
“You went through several red lights, you barged your way through traffic, that was while you were forcing your way through causing others to take evasive action.”
