Teenager smashed stolen Ford Fiesta into parked car during Leeds chase
A teenager lost control of a stolen Ford Fiesta and smashed into a parked car while being pursued by police.
Solomon Forrest, who is now 20, avoided jail this week because he was only 17 at the time.
Leeds Crown Court heard that the Fiesta had been stolen from outside a home on April 22, 2022.
The next day the car was spotted bearing cloned registration plates in the Kirkstall area. Police began to pursue the car at around 8pm on Mount Preston Street in the Woodhouse area.
Forrest ran red lights, drove on the wrong side of the road and exceeded the speed limit, prosecutor Zarreen Alam-Cheetham told the court.
He then smashed into a parked Dacia vehicle before he and his passenger tried to make off on foot before being detained.
Forrest, of Upper Wortley Road, Upper Wortley, admitted to police during his interview that he drove dangerously but only because he had no licence.
He said he bought the Fiesta from a “friend of a friend” but had no documentation.
He has 13 previous convictions for 29 offences including aggravated vehicle taking from when he was 14 and multiple thefts.
For his latest offending he admitted dangerous driving, fraudulently using a vehicle licence and handling stolen goods.
Mitigating, Samuel Ponniah pointed to Forrest’s age at the time and said: “The boy who committed these offences is not the man standing here today.”
He said Forrest had overcome an addiction to ketamine and for the first time in his life was in stable accommodation.
The judge, Recorder Keir Monteith KC, alluded to his “difficult and problematic” childhood and would sentence him according to his age at the time of his offending, meaning the outcome would be more lenient.
He gave him 10 months’ jail, suspended for two years, with 20 rehabilitation days, ordered him to complete a 26-session accredited programme and put him on a six-month GPS tag to monitor his whereabouts.
Forrest was also given a one-year driving ban.