Rogue Hartlepool driver led police on 70mph chase after learning he was to become a dad

Unqualified driver Thomas Galloway, 22, from Hartlepool, took his mother’s Volkswagen Golf car after a phone conversation with his girlfriend in the early hours.

After Galloway ignored police blue lights to stop, he drove the opposite way down a carriageway, over a field and the wrong way down a one way street on a route from Warren Road to King Oswy Drive, prosecutor Christopher Bevan told Teesside Crown Court.

He abandoned the car and was captured after a short chase, failing a drugs test which showed positive for cannabis.

Sarah Hopkinson, defending, said that he had no previous convictions or dealings with the police and he panicked when he saw the blue lights.

She said that he suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and his doctor had signed him off work until September.

His pregnant girlfriend was in court with his parents supporting him.

Miss Hopkinson added: “He has drastically reduced his cannabis use since then and he is determined to turn his life around and to set a good example to the child.”

Judge Howard Crowson told Galloway: ”I come back to the view that you have got some growing up to do.”

Galloway, of Bruntoft Avenue, was given a two-year community order, disqualified from driving for 18 months and until he passes an extended driving test after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on February 10 and to driving with no insurance, no licence and with excess drugs.