A BANNED driver who went the wrong way down a motorway at 110mph only stopped when a police officer was forced to crash into him.

Preston Crown Court heard the police helicopter had to be scrambled during the high speed pursuit of 25-year-old James Christopher Honey.

Prosecuting Craig MacGregor said Honey, of Ascot Way, Accrington, had initially been seen by officers driving in a stolen Seat Leon on the M6 in Cumbria travelling towards Lancashire at 1.30am on July 29.

When he got into Lancashire police tried to stop Honey using stingers but were unable to as he turned off onto the M55 and headed towards Blackpool.

Mr MacGregor said Honey very quickly performed a u-turn and headed back along the M55 in the wrong direction.

Honey went back onto the busy M6 where he travelled in the wrong direction along the carriageway and reached speeds in excess of 110mph, the court heard.

In order to protect other road users, officers performed a ‘rolling road block’ with police cars at the front and back of a convoy of traffic on the carriageway.

PC Matthew Burn, who Judge Mark Brown commended for his bravery, went to the front of the road block and saw Honey ‘weaving’ towards other traffic at high speed.

As the defendant tried to swerve from the outside lane onto the hard shoulder in a bid to circumvent the road block and continue his bid to escape, PC Burn crashed his own vehicle into the side of the Seat. That incident was captured by the camera onboard PC Burn’s vehicle and played in court.

Mr MacGregor said: “The defendant immediately ran off. There was a young female in the passenger seat. The defendant was found hiding in some buses.

“He said to officers ‘I wasn’t driving. The driver is still down there’. He was blaming the female for the incident.”

When he was captured and forced to the ground by officers Honey suffered ligament damage but his defence barrister Mark Stuart said it was something entirely of his own making.

Honey pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, driving without insurance, failing to stop after an accident and beaching of a suspended prison sentence.

He received the suspended sentence at Burnley Crown Court last October following a road rage incident in which he threatened two people with a baseball bat.

After pleading guilty to dangerous driving and possessing an offensive weapon in relation to that incident he was given a nine-month jail sentence, suspended for two years and banned from driving for 12 months.

Mr Stuart said it was because of the prospect of that suspended sentence being activated that his client panicked during the incident in July.

Mr Stuart said: “This was driving from Cumbria to Lancashire at high speeds followed by a dangerous manoeuvre no doubt on the M55 and M6.

“There’s no justifiable explanation but the defendant knew that he was disqualified and panicked upon seeing the police.

“It was sheer panic. Once he got himself into this mess he couldn’t get out of it.

“The defendant himself suffered a little bit of summary justice. As he ran off he was brought to the ground by police and as a consequence ruptured his tendons and ligaments.

“He is still on crutches today but knows he has brought it all upon himself.”

In a letter to the court, Honey wrote: “I feel I have let all my family down at this moment. I’m sorry. This is not me. I hate life in jail.”

Judge Brown, the Honorary Recorder of Preston, said it was a ‘miracle’ that nobody was seriously hurt and said it was the most serious piece of dangerous driving he had ever come across.

Sentencing, he said: “This is an extremely serious case of dangerous driving. It’s harder to envisage a more serious case of its type. It’s something of a miracle that nobody did suffer serious injury.

“You come from a very decent and hard working family and your family think highly of you.

“It’s very clear that they are shocked and in complete disbelief at your conduct in relation to these offences.

“You are 25-years-old and it’s about time that you started to grow up.”

Honey was jailed for 23 months, disqualified from driving for five years and ordered to take an extended re-test.