Family cheers high-speed chase man’s release date

Mar 8 2008 by Chloe Griffiths, Liverpool Daily Post

A YOUNG man who led police on a high-speed chase through Liverpool has been jailed.

But James McDonough’s family cheered as he was led away because he will be released before his 21st birthday.

The 20-year-old was ordered to serve 13-and-a-half months detention after admitting dangerous driving, but his family clapped from the public gallery because he will be released on licence before his next birthday.

McDonough, of Harper Road, Walton, was followed by police after someone travelling in his car shouted abuse at officers while at a petrol forecourt on Queen’s Drive in Clubmoor on November 20 last year.

Officers began to follow McDonough, who was driving a Volvo he had borrowed, but he sped away.

Judge David Swift told McDonough: “It began, it seems, perfectly normally, but then you began to drive what can only be described, as exceedingly dangerously, you sped through the streets, clearly driving at high speeds, through traffic lights causing other traffic to take evasive action. You were weaving through other traffic before you collided with a wall.”

Liverpool Crown Court heard McDonough – who has a conviction for dangerous driving and was on licence at the time for a burglary – drove with such high speed he embedded the car in a wall on Southpark Drive. As the police neared, McDonough reversed out – the car badly mangled and the bumper still pushed into the wall.

As he drove away, engine fluid was rapidly leaking and eventually McDonough, and his three companions dumped the car and ran, but McDonough was quickly caught on Morningside View.