A DRIVER whose 100mph chase was so dangerous that police gave up the pursuit has been spared an immediate jail sentence.

Christopher McDonald has already served one jail sentence for an earlier police chase that horrified viewers of the Channel Four fly-on-the-wall series Call the Cops.

He had only been out of jail for 14 months when he sparked an almost identical incident in which he nearly knocked down a moped rider and went past a school at 70 in a 30mph limit.

McDonald’s second pursuit took him along many of the same country roads near Newton Abbot as he used on the first. He shook off the police twice before abandoning his Vauxhall Insignia on a farm track near Shaldon.

A police dog tracked him across a muddy field and found him just after he had been stopped by a police officer in the neighbouring lane.

He was given a suspended sentence at Exeter Crown Court after a judge said the public would be better protected in the long run by him going on a thinking skills course as part of a suspended sentence.

McDonald, aged 29, of Shirburn Road, Torquay, denied dangerous driving and driving while disqualified but was found guilty by a jury earlier this week.

He was jailed for 20 months, suspended for two years with 100 hours of unpaid community work and ordered to attend a 19 session thinking skills course.

He was also curfewed for four months and banned from driving for three-and-a-half years by Judge Anna Richardson.

She told him: ‘You are extremely lucky not to be going to prison now. Your driving was appalling. Watching the dashcam footage, I was waiting for you to hit something. It is miraculous you did not.’

The judge said that sending McDonald to jail would keep him off the roads for a few months while he was inside, but changing his attitudes and enabling him to behave more responsibly would protect the public indefinitely.

Miss Bathsheba Cassel, defending, said McDonald has stayed out of trouble and made changes to his lifestyle in the 11 months since the offence, including ridding himself of a drug habit.

She said he split up with his girlfriend as a result of his arrest but is now reconciled and plans to move back into her home to serve his curfew.

During the trial, Mr Robert Yates, prosecuting, said a police patrol chased the Insignia after it failed to stop in Torquay and it reached very high speeds as it headed onto country roads leading towards Newton Abbot.

The pursuit started at around 12.30pm on December 12 last year and continued until the abandoned vehicle was found in a track off Long Lane, Shaldon, after 1pm.

Mr Yates said a female officer saw McDonald walking in Long Lane and stopped him. She was asking his details when dog handler PC Mark Stevens and Drake arrived after tracking a trail through a muddy field. 

PC Stevens had seen a trail of shoe prints in the field which matched the trainers worn by McDonald.

PC Callum Brown, who conducted the pursuit, said: ‘The driving was horrendous. His speeds were exceptional. It was outrageous. He went into a roundabout exceptionally fast.’

He said during his pursuit he went at 77mph in a 40mph limit and 100 mph in a 60mph zone but failed to catch the Vauxhall. He gave up the chase twice because it was unsafe to continue.

McDonald told the jury he worked as a mechanic in Torquay and had been asked by his employer to deliver a different car to Long Lane during his lunch hour.

He said he knew nothing about the Insignia and was not the driver. He said he was to be picked up by his employer, who he claimed had lied to the police and the court.

He claimed he had been mis-identified by Pc Brown because his previous chase had featured on Call the Cops, which had been aired in September 2020.