A motorist who took his ex-partner’s car and then drove the wrong way down a dual-carriageway was jailed for 15 months.
Graham Cochrane, 44, took the Rover from his ex-partner’s home in Wootton on July 28, but then went on a spree of dangerous driving.
Rachel Law, prosecuting at Northampton Crown Court, said Cochrane was driving down a road with two lines of parked cars when he met a police car coming the other way. She said: “He started to reverse as if to let them through but stopped 15 metres from the police car.
“The defendant then screwed up his face, hunched his shoulders and drove at the police car, deliberately hitting it.” The court heard he was followed onto the A45 at the Queen Eleanor roundabout, but drove eastbound on the westbound carriageway.
Other vehicles were forced to take evasive action, as he drove on the wrong side of the road into Brackmills. After abandoning the car, he was eventually tracked by police dog Luke.
Cochrane, of Chepstow Close, St James, admitted aggravated taking of a car, damaging property and driving without a licence or insurance.
Recorder Michael Elsom, who jailed him and imposed an 18-month disqualification, said: “None of this was an accident.
“It was deliberate.”