A DANGER driver who crashed into two vehicles as he sped off from the police with cannabis on board his blue Toyota Yaris has been warned that he faces a jail term when he's sentenced on Friday (October 6).
Aqab Basharat, 27, of Midland Terrace, Keighley, collided with a marked police vehicle and a parked VW Polo during a high-speed pursuit through the town on September 23 last year.
Prosecutor Lydia Pearce said that police officers who were on patrol in the Victoria Road area of the town had ordered him to stop his vehicle and turn off the ignition after suspecting they had witnessed a drug deal.
Instead, Basharat drove into the police vehicle, then mounted the kerb and made off, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.
The officers activated their sirens and blue lights and went after the Toyota, Miss Pearce said.
Basharat overtook other vehicles, including a learner driver, at speeds of up to 50mph, almost collided with another motorist, drove over a blind hill at a bridge in the centre of the road and went straight across a mini roundabout.
He then went down a road where he came to a dead end. He hit the parked VW Polo and made off on foot.
Basharat was chased and apprehended by officers soon afterwards.
The court heard that he had three small bags of cannabis with him in the car and he tested positive for the Class B drug at the roadside.
He told the police that ‘a random man’ had asked him for drugs but he said he didn’t have any.
Basharat pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to dangerous driving and the possession of cannabis.
The court heard that since committing the offences, he had been disqualified from driving and fined at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates Court for driving whilst over the prescribed limit.
Recorder Taryn Turner decided to adjourn the dangerous driving sentencing until Friday, so that more information could be provided to the court about that conviction.
She told Basharat’s barrister, Ella Embleton, that she wanted to know more about the chronology of the magistrates court case before passing sentence.
She enlarged Basharat’s bail but warned him his offending was "extremely serious and dangerous".
“Do not think that by adjourning the case for a week I’m giving you any expectation or hope that it will be anything but an immediate custodial sentence,” she added.
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