DRUG-CRAZED David Shatford caused terror and mayhem on the roads of Cheltenham when he took a car from outside a pub and went on a joyride.
Nine witnesses made 999 calls as Shatford, 29, drove on the wrong side of the road and hit an oncoming car, mounted pavements, jumped a red light, and collided with signs on a roundabout.
He also made women and children pedestrians run for their lives, used a supermarket car park as a race circuit, and kept driving even after a tyre came off the Saab he was driving. Shatford, of Union Street, Fairview, Cheltenham, admitted aggravated vehicle taking, driving while banned, having no insurance and two offences of failing to stop on July 22.
He was jailed for 16 months and banned from driving for four years by Judge William Hart, who told him it was "a prolonged, persistent and deliberate course of appalling bad driving".
Prosecutor Lisa Hennessy said the car owner parked his Saab outside The Hatherley pub, in Hatherley Road, Cheltenham, at 7.30pm and went inside to play cards. Three quarters of an hour later, police began to receive a series of nine 999 calls about the car after Shatford took it from outside the pub and went on his crazy drive.
The first came from Samantha Potter who saw the Saab coming towards her on the wrong side of the road.
"She thought the driver was reaching down for something in the car. He kept on coming even though she was sounding her horn and he collided with her car," she said.
"Another witness, Adam Jones, just watched in disbelief as Shatford then attempted a three-point turn in the road after the collision. It became a seven-point turn and he then drove off. What happened over the next 15 minutes was extraordinary driving."
She said Shatford drove to Asda.
"He failed to negotiate a roundabout and collided with the roadside furniture which was flattened to the ground. He mounted the kerb and went onto a grass bank. He then went into the Asda car park and used it as a racetrack," she said.
He then drove towards the A40 Golden Valley road, left the motorway slip road and returned back along the Golden Valley to Cheltenham. A tyre fell off and he swerved across all lanes then into Princess Elizabeth Way, where he almost ran over a woman pedestrian.
The pedestrian, Rita Jordan, who was with her two grandchildren, said: "I was very frightened."
