A scaffolder who crashed his car through a garage door after leading police on a chase was jailed for eight months, writes Rebecca Smith.

The pursuit started after a patrol car pulled up to offer help to Ian Baker, whose car had run out of petrol on the A34 on his way to a community service appointment on June 27. He was filling his car up with petrol from a can at the side of the road and gave officers a false name, Oxford Crown Court heard.

When they tried to follow Baker, 20, of Little Bury, Blackbird Leys, Oxford, to his home address he sped off. John Small, prosecuting, said Baker turned sharply from Rose Hill into Westbury Crescent and from there into Kelbourne Road.

Baker found himself in a cul de sac and jumped out of his moving Ford Fiesta as it rolled into a driveway and crashed into a garage door, damaging the car inside.

Baker fled on foot across back gardens. He gave himself up a couple of days later. He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, having no licence and no insurance. He was banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to take an extended driving test. No separate penalty was given for having no licence or insurance.

Rachel Drake, defending, said: "This defendant's motivation for all this offending, in many ways, is actually quite positive. He is a married man with a daughter of three months of age and it is purely to provide for them in the best way that he found himself offending." Miss Drake said Baker was on a nine-month probation order for criminal damage after he dented a car by kicking it on May 26. He was also given a 240 hour community service order in November for theft and possession of counterfeit currency.