A man has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving after seven police officers were injured when he crashed into them while being chased by police.
Mazyar Azarbonyad, 20, was taking a woman home from a date in the early hours of 9 April when he crashed his BMW while it was being pursued by police along the northbound carriageway of the A1, near junction 75 and the Denton Burn roundabout, near Newcastle.
Photographs from the aftermath of the crash showed four badly damaged marked police cars and one unmarked police vehicle, which was on its side.
Seven officers were taken to hospital with what were described as “non-life-threatening injuries”.
It led to the road being closed for several hours on the day of the crash. Newcastle airport told travellers to allow additional time to get there.
Magistrates were told that a woman in the car with Azarbonyad at the time was on her first date with him and he was taking her home.
He was charged over the crash on Thursday.
Azarbonyad, a personal trainer from Stanley, County Durham, admitted a series of driving offences at Newcastle magistrates court.
They included dangerous driving and failing to stop on that night.
He also pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and without a licence four times after the crash, despite his bail conditions telling him not to drive after his arrest.
One of the journeys that broke his bail conditions was driving a Hyundai i10 to work at a gym in Newcastle city centre after the crash.
A woman in her 20s who was arrested after the crash on suspicion of aiding and abetting dangerous driving has been released with no further action to be taken in relation to that arrest.
However, she was released on police bail for possible drug possession offences, pending further inquiries.
