A father-to-be led police on a late-night high-speed chase as he took his seven-months pregnant girlfriend to hospital, York magistrates heard.

Learner driver Carl Anthony Moorhouse, 28, believed the birth was imminent because she was having contractions in the early hours of February 16.

So despite knowing he was over the alcohol limit, he drove her from Selby to York.

When police tried to pull him over because he was swerving from lane to lane in Wigginton Road, he panicked, said his solicitor Keith Haggerty.

Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said Moorhouse:

raced off at twice the 30 mph speed limit

sped through a red light at the junction with Crichton Avenue

hit the wing mirror of a police van parked to stop him just before Wigginton Road meets the A1237 ring road

shook off police but was resighted spinning out of control on the A64 westbound carriageway.

When the car stopped on a grass verge, Moorhouse began to run away but then held up his hands saying "OK, you've got me", the court heard.

His girlfriend was so distressed she could barely speak and she completed her journey to York District Hospital by ambulance.

Keith Haggerty, defending, said she was having contractions and medical staff in Selby had told her to go to York. It later turned out to be a false alarm. The baby is due in the next two weeks.

Moorhouse, of Annie Street, Selby, pleaded guilty to drink-driving, driving without insurance, driving without supervision, failure to stop at the request of a police officer and failure to stop after an accident, theft of a car tax disc and fraudulent use of a car tax disc.

Magistrates ordered him to do 120 hours' community service, and fined him £150 with £55 costs. He was also banned from driving for a year.

Mr Haggerty said Moorhouse had had something to drink when his girlfriend said she was having contractions and the pair walked to Selby War Memorial Hospital, where they were told to go to York and no ambulance was available.

So Moorhouse took the deliberate decision to drink-drive to take her to hospital. He was moving between lanes because he did not know the route.

He had found a car tax disc on the road several weeks earlier and used it on his own car.

Updated: 11:24 Thursday, April 26, 2001