'Unforgivable' BMW driver mowed down crowd of people outside Leeds pub during brawl
An angry thug involved in a pub brawl in east Leeds then got behind the wheel and mowed down a crowd of people before ploughing into another car and a wall.
Luke Adair was handed a lengthy jail sentence this week for his “unforgivable” actions which left people landing on the bonnet of the BMW.
Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt following the incident that began in the New Travellers Rest in Cross Gates.
An argument had broken out in the pub at around 11pm on May 18 in which there as pushing and shoving, punches thrown and glasses broken. However, Adair did not throw the first punch, prosecutor Samuel Ponniah told Leeds Crown Court.
The fight then spilled into the pub car park where a man threw a punch at him. The incident was caught on CCTV.
But Adair then got into the white BMW - which did not belong to him and was bearing false reg plates and had no MOT.
He appeared to knock a man down before he got back out. But he then got behind the wheel for a second time, reversed, then moved forward at speed, ploughing into the crowd.
Adair then drove off, but got into a road-rage incident with another car which crashed into the BMW. He then purposely ploughed into the other car twice.
He then crashed the BMW into the wall and front gates of a home on Cross Gates Road, which the resident later told police “made the house shake”.
By the time the police arrived, 30-year-old Adair had left the scene but his DNA was recovered from the BMW.
He was arrested on June 24 but gave a no-comment interview to the police.
Adair, of no fixed address, admitted attempted GBH, dangerous driving, driving while banned and without insurance.
He has 18 previous convictions for 30 offences, including violence and multiple road-related offences including dangerous driving and drink driving.
Mitigating, Celine Kart said Adair was “aware that it was a realistic sentence of immediate custody”.
She said the father-of-two suffered from PTSD and was in the BMW to get away from the escalating situation outside the pub.
She said he had “significant remorse” but had been using his time on remand wisely, studying for maths and English qualifications.
Judge Ray Singh told Adair: “You are somebody who is simply prepared to ignore the law. What you did was unforgivable. You should not have been behind the wheel of that vehicle.
“Without warning you drove directly into the path of those on the street. Your intention was to cause them really serious harm. You could have had no other intention. It was a highly-dangerous weapon.”
He jailed Adair for 50 months and gave him a new driving ban of more than five years. However he still has more than 1,300 days left on an existing ban.