Jake the Doberman put down after Nicholas Oakland took him on 124mph chase from York

Jake the Doberman was the “precious friend” of his owner Matthew Wilson, who had left him in the boot of his Range Rover Sport when he parked it outside a corner shop in Holgate, York Crown Court heard.

Ayman Khokhar, prosecuting, said Nicholas Brian Oakland stole the car and when police spotted him heading south on the A19 towards Selby and tried to get him to stop, he raced off at high speed, driving on the wrong side of the road.

Eventually he lost control and the car barrel rolled into a field.

York Crown Court heard that the dog suffered suspected spinal or neck injuries.

Read more about Jake and his owner here

Oakland was banned from driving and had previously served prison sentences for other dangerous driving which included damaging a Park&Ride bus, driving through a line of cones into a stretch of road closed off for roadworks, speeding at 70mph through Tang Hall at night without lights and ramming a police car.

Read more about his previous bad driving here

“When you are in drink or drugs, you are a one-man crime wave,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told Oakland. “On this occasion you drove like a lunatic. You could have killed people and you caused terrible suffering to someone’s precious friend and pet, who had to be put down.”

He said Oakland had a “shocking record for driving” but the maximum sentence he could pass was two years and he had to reduce that by a third for Oakland’s guilty plea.

Dangerous driver Nicholas Brian Oakland (inset) with a still from the North Yorkshire Police film of the 124 mph pursuit

Oakland, 30, of Cecilia Place, off Holgate Road, York, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, aggravated taking of a car, animal cruelty, driving whilst disqualified and driving without insurance, all committed on February 24.

He was jailed for 19 months, banned from driving for three years and nine months and ordered to take an extended driving test before driving alone again.

For him, Allan Armbister said Oakland was “cavalier” about breaking the law, but he "was devastated by the death of the dog.”

The principal mitigation was Oakland’s guilty plea. He had been in custody since his arrest in February.

In August, a jury heard how lorries and cars had to avoid Oakland as he drove at more than 100mph for long stretches on the wrong side of the A19 and squeezed between vehicles on both sides of the road simultaneously. Turning onto the A163 he accelerated up to 124mph.

Read more about how police caught Oakland here

Watch the video of the chase and Jake's rescue here

The jury was considering the case because psychiatrists had told York Crown Court Oakland was unfit to plea. They found Oakland had committed the acts of the offences.

But when the case returned to court for sentence Mr Armbister said that a psychiatrist had since ruled that Oakland was fit to plea.

The judge said: "It is quite clear that this defendant's mental health ebbs and flows depending on his imbibing of illicit drugs. His period in custody has done him a power of good."