An uninsured driver has been jailed for a year and disqualified from driving after a high-speed pursuit across Swindon with a knife in his car.
Keiron Barlow, 25, of no fixed abode, was sentenced to nine months in prison after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and was also given a further three months for possessing a knife in a public place.
He was also disqualified from driving for 27 months for the dangerous driving and failing to provide a specimen for analysis.
Barlow was seen driving the Ford Focus down Swindon Road at speed shortly after midnight on 11th November last year, shortly after police had received a report of a man brandishing a knife out of a car.
When attempts were made to stop the vehicle, the car continued off at speed and a pursuit ensued.
The car was then driven up the wrong side of Cirencester Way, a dual carriageway, narrowly missing vehicles coming in the other direction, hitting 70mph.
The pursuit came to an end on Duchess Way, which is a dead end, before Barlow jumped out of the moving car and got trapped between the vehicle and a fence, suffering a partial amputation of the thumb on his right hand.
He attended hospital where he refused to provide a specimen of blood for analysis.
A search of Barlow’s car revealed a knife in the driver’s door pocket.
PC James Salmond, of Wiltshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit, said: “Barlow’s actions on the night in question caused considerable concern to the wider public, not only in his manner of driving to evade being caught, but his flagrant use of a knife which is why we were called in the first place.
“Thankfully, no member of the public came to harm as a result of his actions considering the speeds he was driving at on the wrong side of the road during the pursuit.
“Barlow will now have time in prison to consider his actions and we’d like to reassure the public that behaviour like this will not be tolerated across Wiltshire.
“Failure to provide a sample for analysis as well will not mean that you will get off lightly from either drink or drug driving, but will face significant consequences, as proven here.”
