A teenager who told police and paramedics he’d been speeding through the streets of Blackburn at 100mph before he smashed his car into a bus full of people has been jailed.

Hasnain Choudry was already subject to a suspended sentence order and had been banned from driving for a similar offence, which he was convicted of in June 2023, when he sped away from police in Blackburn on January 13.

Preston Crown Court heard how the 19-year-old had been in a Volkswagen Golf travelling along Higher Audley Street on the morning of January 13 when police decided to follow him.

Charlotte Phillips, prosecuting, said when Choudry saw the officers, he accelerated away from them, along Copy Nook, overtaking a van in the process.

As the police activated their lights and sirens, Ms Phillips said Choudry did not stop but continued to increase his speed, travelling at 50mph and going through red lights.

She told the court: “His speed then increased to 60mph or 65mph in a 30mph zone, and he continued and undertook two cars and went through another set of red traffic lights.

“The police estimated he was travelling at around 80mph at one point before they lost sight of him as his car turned into Accrington Road.”

Lancashire Telegraph: Hasnain ChoudryHasnain Choudry (Image: Lancs Police)

The court heard that as the police turned into Accrington Road, they could see the VW Golf had crashed into a stationary vehicle and then crashed into a bus which had been travelling in the opposite direction.

Ms Phillips went on: “The officers approached the vehicle and saw there was no-one in the driver's seat, but there was a front seat passenger.

“The defendant was lying on the back seat of the car.”

At that stage, Choudry told the police he had been asleep in the back of the vehicle and didn’t know what had happened, spinning a yarn to the officers, saying the driver had run away.

However, he was arrested for dangerous driving and while being tended to by paramedics confessed that he had been driving his car at around 100mph, had lost control, hit a car and then a bus, and as his vehicle came to a stop, had jumped in the back and pretended to be asleep.

He was interviewed on January 13 and provided no comment answers, but later pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance.

The 19-year-old, of Greenside Avenue, Blackburn has one conviction for three previous motoring offences.

READ MORE: Blackburn teen avoids jail following 19 minute police chase

Ms Phillips told the court that for these, which he committed in April 2023, he was handed a suspended sentence, unpaid work and rehabilitation days.

However, Choudry had failed to attend some of his probation appointments in June last year following his conviction, which, along with the most recent driving offences, put him in breach of that suspended sentence.

Choudry's barrister Jonathan Turner said his client’s personal mitigation was unusual.

He said: “His life changed on November 27, 2018, for it was then that his neighbours, who he had known all his life, attacked his family.

READ MORE: Four men jailed for total of 100 years for the murder of Sajed Choudry

“During that attack his father was murdered, his brother lost an arm, and his mother was attacked so badly that she lost all movement in one side of her body.

“The defendant was the only one left unscathed by what took place, but he saw what happened, he saw his father being murdered.

“It was at this court that those people were convicted of murder and attempted murder.

“He has suffered anxiety and depression since and he became despondent with life, and that’s what led him failing to attend his appointments.

“He wanted to escape from life and escape from the situation at home.

“The defendant has come to realise that by the manner of his driving he could have caused suffering to someone else’s family that he himself has felt.”

Sentencing Choudry, Judge Graham Knowles KC said: “Your father was murdered when you were 14 or so, before your own eyes, and the report I have about you says your father died in your arms.

“There’s no doubt that that was why the judge did not send you to prison for the offences you committed last year, whereas almost anyone else would have gone to prison.

“Now, I have to sentence you for committing the same offences again, having bought a car despite being disqualified, and you know I have to send you to prison today.

“You are only 19 and whatever has gone on in the last five years, you are clearly still an immature young man.

“The attack in 2018 clearly still has an effect on you.”

Choudry was jailed for 13 months and banned from driving for four years and four months.