A DANGEROUS driver is unlikely to be free again until 2013 after a hair-raising journey through the centre of York, the city’s crown court heard.

John Paul Harris was on parole after a jail sentence when he drove backwards into a car waiting at the traffic lights in Exhibition Square in a bid to evade police, Judge Patrick Robertshaw said.

Before the crash on Wednesday, April 21, he had driven the wrong way down a one-way street and put other road users at risk because of the speed of his driving.

“As offences of dangerous driving, in my judgement, this was quite a bad one,” the judge said.

“Being released early from prison is a privilege and carries with it the responsibility to behave responsibly, which plainly you didn’t do on the evening in question.”

Harris’ barrister, Taryn Turner, said the Parole Board revoked his parole after his arrest for dangerous driving and his release date was now not until 2013. She told the judge Harris had spent much of the last few years in prison and had tried to lead a lawful life after his latest release from jail.

He was jailed in 2007 for four years after pleading guilty to wounding, affray, public order offences, careless driving, drink-driving and driving while disqualified and without insurance.

Harris has a long criminal record, including breaking a driving ban and crashing a car when unfit to drive while twice the alcohol limit and after taking the drug diazepam. He had also wounded a man in a pub fight and vandalised a house. Judge Robertshaw jailed Harris for an additional 21 months, banned him from driving for three years and ordered to take an extended driving test before driving again.

He will serve the new sentence after he completes the jail term he was on parole for.

Harris, 30, of Lilbourne Drive, Clifton, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving without insurance or a licence after the judge rejected his bid to throw out evidence identifying him as the driver in Exhibition Square.

York Crown Court heard Harris called in at McDonald’s in Blake Street on April 21 and, after buying food, drove a VW Passat along Blake Street against the one-way restriction to the junction with Duncombe Place.