Cocaine-addled driver smashed through police road block before colliding with parked car

Officers had coned off Lower Town Street, near the junction with McLaren Fields in Bramley, on the afternoon of August 9 last year following a crash.

But body-worn camera footage played at Leeds Crown Court this week showed Sam Tavakoli ignoring the cones and driving through in his BMW. Moments later he turned around and drove back, colliding with a cone before trying to squeeze between two waiting vehicles, hitting them both.

He then accelerated away and smashed into the parked vehicle on Ashton Road, forcing the nose of his car up onto the boot of the stationary car.

The officer is then seen running up to the BMW and removing the keys from from the ignition. Tavakoli, who had no top on, appeared to be intoxicated, prosecutor Jennifer Gatland told the court.

A roadside swab test showed he had taken cocaine. He refused a roadside breath test but did blow 50 mcgs of alcohol in 100 mls of breath at the police station. The legal limit is 35 mcgs. However, he refused to take a second test so an average reading could not be ascertained.

The 40-year-old told police that the cocaine he had been taking was in fact Mcat, the psychoactive drug, with Tavakoli then saying: "The dealers are all out to get me."

He admitted dangerous driving and failing to provide a specimen for analysis. He has 10 previous convictions for 15 offences.

Mitigating, Anthony Sugare said of the incident: "It's bizarre, there's no rhyme or reason to his actions other than what he alleges was a psychotic episode at the time.

"It was not a situation in which he was trying to escape from someone, he just seemed to be crashing into cars without any purpose whatsoever. Fortunately for him there were no injuries to anybody."

He said that Tavakoli, of Cowley Road, Rodley, ran a waste management business and was "trying to turn his life around".

Judge Nathan Adams told him: "It's quite clear you were heavily under the influence of drugs. There's no excuse for your behaviour. There's clearly a drug problem at the heart of it."

He gave him nine months' jail, suspended for two years, a 12-month drug rehabilitation requirement, 25 rehabilitation days and a two-year driving ban.