Shrewsbury teenage car thief led high speed chase

A teenager led police on a high-speed chase through Telford in a stolen car and attempted to force the officer tailing him off the road, a court heard.

Josh Stentiford raced through red lights at two normally busy road junctions as officers desperately tried to get him to stop during the six-mile pursuit.

The 17-year-old's identity can be made public after the Shropshire Star persuaded magistrates sitting at Telford Youth Court to lift reporting restrictions banning his name being revealed.

He was today starting of an 18-month sentence in a young offenders institution – but justices told him he would have been looking at a jail term of up to seven years had he been an adult.

The court heard he stole a Volkswagen Beetle on July 27 this year after climbing through a downstairs window of a house in Coney Green Way, Wellington, and taking the car keys while young mum Leanne Foulkes and her two children slept upstairs.

His solicitor, Mr Harpreet Jhawar, said his client 'unfortunately enjoyed driving' and resorted to doing it on an illegal basis due to not having a licence.

Stentiford, of Peverey House, Yeaton Peverey, Bomere Heath, Shrewsbury, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to burglary, aggravated vehicle taking and dangerous driving, and driving without a licence or insurance.

Sentencing him Mr Stephen O'Hara, chairman of the bench, said: "We believe this is necessary because the offences are so serious it is necessary for us to protect the public from harm caused by you."