Caravan thief jailed for police chase in North Yorkshire

The caravan bounced as Wayne Besley, 44, towed it at "relatively high speeds" down narrow country roads south of Selby without lights as he tried to evade police, said Rob Galley, prosecuting. But officers punctured his tyre with a stinger, he lost control of the 4x4 he was using to tow the caravan and both vehicles crashed into a ditch. Judge Simon Hickey said as police officers reached the vehicles Besley "was desperately scrambling from the driver's seat into the pedestrian seat" in a bid to convince them someone else was driving.

The caravan's owner had taken precautions to prevent it being stolen but the thieves had come prepared with ramps to take it over a stream onto the road network. She had been about to take the caravan to Germany but had to cancel her plans. It was so badly damaged in the crash the insurance company wrote it off.

She had bought it for GBP10,000 a year earlier and spent GBP1,000 upgrading it. Besley, of Quantock Close, Thorne, north of Doncaster, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, theft, driving without insurance and failure to attend court on the day he was originally due to be sentenced. He was jailed for 21 months, banned from driving for 34 and a half months and ordered to pass an extended driving test before driving unsupervised again.

He has 90 previous convictions, many of them for theft or burglary and 11 breaches of court orders including community based sentences, York Crown Court heard. Defence barrister Maleka Akuamy said Besley was a drug user and had been ordered to drive the vehicles by someone to whom he owed a drug debt. The judge said Besley could have pulled in to a pub forecourt early in the chase but had not.

Ms Akuamy said Besley had told a probation officer he would prefer to go to jail rather than stay in the community so he could get away from those to whom he owed money, but he had since spent a night in jail after being arrested on a court warrant and changed his mind. He now wanted to work with probation officers in the community. He had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a personality disorder, depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The judge said police first spotted Besley and the caravan as he drove off the eastbound carriageway of the M62 near Eggborough at 2am on April 2.

They signalled him to stop, but he drove along the A19 through Whitely and Askern at 10mph over the speed limit, then went through Moss at 20mph to 25mph over the speed limit, was stung by a stinger near Kirkhouse Green and crashed in Lodge Lane nearby.