Wetherby drug driver led police on shocking 137mph chase before crashing into unmarked car

William Geoffrey Mann, 22, was several times over the limit for cocaine when police officers signalled for him to stop in late September 2020.

Instead Mann decided to flee from the traffic sergeant in his Mercedes.

Dramatic footage of the chase shows Mann reaching 137mph on rural roads and 90 mph in villages around Wetherby and Boroughbridge.

After failing to stop for officers in Kirk Deighton near Wetherby, he speeds through villages at up to three times the 30mph limit.

He heads through Hunsingore, Cattal, Whixley, Aldborough, Boroughbridge and Bishop Monkton, using rural roads to try to escape.

However, the traffic sergeant, officers on the ground and the Force control room, closed in on him in Burton Leonard.

They then deployed stingers in a number of areas, but Mann crashed into an unmarked police car.

He was then arrested.

Nobody was injured.

Mann, a delivery worker from Wetherby, was taken into custody and charged with drug driving, dangerous driving and failing to stop.

He pleaded guilty and was jailed for eight months at York Crown Court on Friday, June 11.

He was also banned from driving for a year and will have to take an extended retest.

Sergeant Julian Pearson, of the North Yorkshire Police Roads Policing Group, captured the pursuit on his police in-car video system and led the investigation against Mann.

He said: “Mann made a conscious decision to fail to stop for the police, his judgement clouded by his recent drug usage.

"This combined with dangerous high speed driving is a lethal combination.

“This was a prolonged, determined and dangerous attempt to evade capture for drug driving, putting himself, his passengers, other road users and the police at serious risk.”

“When a vehicle is requested to stop and the driver refuses, the police have no idea why.

"It could be for a multitude of reasons and in Mann’s case it was for drug driving.

"Had he stopped then he would have been dealt for that offence and most likely not in prison as he is today.

“We make absolutely no apologies for catching drivers like Mann – we regularly see the carnage and heartbreak they cause innocent people. So I’m glad the courts have taken another dangerous driver off our roads and have protected our communities.”