A driver who hit almost 100mph on the Oxford bypass then narrowly missed a pedestrian in Headington was said by a judge to have ‘missed his vocation’.

Banned motorist Kyran McFarlane was likened to a Formula 1 driver by Judge Michael Gledhill QC, as he sent him down for more than two-and-a-half years at Oxford Crown Court.

He told the 32-year-old: “Your driving was rather like that of a Formula 1 driver. But you were not at Silverstone or anywhere else. You were in a residential area and your driving was extremely dangerous.

“You were driving so fast that the officers decided it was too dangerous to continue pursuing you and therefore desisted in trying to catch you.”

Jailing him for three years, three months and two weeks and banning him from the roads for four years, the judge said: “I would say that you appear to have missed your vocation. You are a very competent, able driver even when you were under the influence of drink, as we have all seen for ourselves [on the video footage].”

Prosecutor Matthew Knight told the court that police officers had initially gone to speak to Mcfarlane, as he was parked up in Abingdon football club car park at 4.30am on October 9 with his headlights on and a loaded crossbow on the passenger seat.

The officers woke the driver, who was slumbering at the wheel, and asked him to take a breathalyser test.

He made a few ‘feeble’ attempts to blow into the equipment before pushing past the officers and getting back behind the wheel of his black BMW.

Footage from one of the officers’ bodyworn video cameras showed the hatchback squeezing past a marked police 4x4 before screaming out the car park.

The car was then seen on CCTV speeding through Abingdon town centre before it got away from police.

Later that day, at around 10am, another police officer saw the BMW parked up in Wolvercote. Again, Mcfarlane was asleep at the wheel.

The officer found the car’s doors were locked. When he went to smash the window with a glass hammer, the driver started the engine and began to speed off.

The policeman fell to the floor as Mcfarlane reversed the car then stopped. Mr Knight said: “[The officer] said in his statement he honestly for a split second feared for his life.”

Mcfarlane reversed again, beginning a pursuit that saw him drive from Wolvercote to Headington on busy roads.

 

Kyran McFarlane mugshot Picture: TVP

Kyran McFarlane mugshot Picture: TVP

 

The police car hit 97mph on the eastern bypass in an effort to catch up with the BMW driver, who ignored red lights, went on the wrong side of roads, sped past Headington shops then reached almost 70mph on Windmill Road – where he narrowly missed a pedestrian - before senior officers called off the chase.

The defendant, who had been banned from the roads eight months earlier for driving whilst disqualified, was later arrested hiding in his girlfriend’s attic. The crossbow was never recovered.

Defending, Rishy Panesar acknowledged there was little he could say in mitigation and Mcfarlane accepted he would be jailed. “He knows all he can really ask for is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.”

Mcfarlane, of Coltsfoot Square, Oxford, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, assaulting a police officer, possession of a weapon, driving without insurance, disqualified driving and failing to provide a specimen of breath.

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