A BANNED driver who tried to run down a policeman during a car chase has been jailed for two years.

Andrew Brian Walls, 30, was defying three separate driving bans when police saw him at the wheel near Carlton, York Crown Court heard.

He fled through country lanes, but as he drove down the main street of Carlton, near Selby, an off-duty policeman tried to stop him and he drove at him.

"You were prepared to run him over, which would involve either killing him or doing him serious harm," the Honorary Recorder of York, Judge Paul Hoffman, told him.

"Fortunately, he jumped out of the way, out of the path of your car, but he was very stressed and shaken up as a result."

Walls, of Low Street, Carlton, denied dangerous driving and driving while disqualified, but was convicted at a trial last month.

He got a 21-month jail term for those offences and was banned from driving for three years. He received an extra three months when the judge re-sentenced him for other motoring offences for which he was on probation. He was also ordered to retake his driving test.

For Walls, Simon Kealey said it was a short chase and although he was driving over the limit, he wasn't going excessively fast. The policeman was in civilian clothes.

Walls had got a job as a forklift truck driver, which helped him curb his desire to drive and had matured since being put on probation.

Updated: 11:58 Saturday, May 24, 2003