A BANNED driver smashed down a bollard during a high-speed police chase through evening traffic in York streets, the city's magistrates heard.

Jamie Dean Campy, 19, touched 70mph before he burst through red traffic lights at the junction of Crichton Avenue and Wigginton Road during the pursuit that began shortly after 9pm on October 8 in Shipton Road, said prosecutor Mike Duffy.

As he swung towards the blocked off entrance of Vyner Street, near York Hospital, the car's doors opened as though he and his passenger were preparing to abandon it and flee on foot.

Then the stolen Vauxhall Astra smashed through a bollard which was trapped under the vehicle as it sped on at 50mph.

But as he drove out of the other end of Vyner Street, he crashed into a vehicle heading out of the city centre along Haxby Road.

He fled, but police caught him behind bushes off Rose Street.

Earlier in the chase, vehicles had had to swerve out of his way as he raced at speeds of between 40mph and 60 mph, sometimes on the wrong side of the road.

Officers had spotted him at the wheel of the Astra only 18 minutes after it had been taken without consent.

He was on bail for being a passenger in a car taken without consent that crashed into a garden wall in Tostig Avenue, Acomb, on May 12.

Campy, of Chapelfields Road, Acomb, pleaded guilty to two offences of aggravated car snatching and one of dangerous driving. He also admitted breaching a community punishment order and his post-custody licence from a prison sentence imposed earlier this year.

Magistrates sent him to York Crown Court for sentencing.

For Campy, Kevin Blount said his client had been associating with people who committed car crimes. He had been trying to cope by himself as his mother had moved out of the area.

Updated: 10:50 Tuesday, November 25, 2003