A serial drug driver was left 'screaming in pain' after smashing into a van during a police chase.
Paul Chew keeps getting behind the wheel despite being banned from driving after demolishing a roundabout and speeding past police at 120mph.
He's been convicted of drug driving three times in the past and was locked up after breaching the terms of a suspended sentence.
The 33-year-old was back in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court today after admitting dangerous driving, driving without insurance and driving whilst disqualified.
At around 11.40pm on June 27 last year Chew was spotted in Everton Valley by a police officer in a marked car as he accelerated fast from traffic lights towards Sleepers Hill, Nardeen Nemat, prosecuting, told the court.
When the officer tried to stop him he instead sped away, turning onto Anfield Road, where the speed limit is 30mph, and accelerated to 50mph.
Chew then "lost control of the vehicle" and "collided with the front of a parked van" resulting in "extensive damage".
Going to the scene the officer reported "the defendant smelled strongly of intoxicants and was screaming in pain".
Ms Nemat explained that as the results of the drugs test had not been returned there was no charge in relation to it.
Chew, of St Bernard's Drive, Bootle, has 11 previous convictions for 24 offences including for multiple counts of drug driving in February 2017, January 2017 and on June 27, 2019, when he was convicted of drug driving, driving without insurance and driving dangerously.
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The serial drug driver was handed a nine month sentence suspended for 18 months after demolishing a roundabout and speeding at 120mph past police.
Chew was disqualified for three years after losing control of his car, careered across the roundabout at Moor Lane in Thornton, spun round, hit a traffic sign and bounced back onto the road.
However after breaching the terms of the order twice, once in October 2018 and in June 2019, he was handed six months behind bars.
The court heard his most recent conviction was June 14, 2019, when he obstructed a police officer and was found in possession of a controlled drug, for which he was given a fine.
Simon Lewis, defending, asked the judge to consider a suspended sentence and said there was a "realistic prospect of rehabilitation through engagement from probation".
Mr Lewis said: "There are a number, I'm bound to concede, of previous driving offences but it does seem he has decent engagement with probation."
He added: "One factor likely to keep him away from offending in the future is his employment."
Mr Lewis also asked the judge to consider the impact of the pandemic on prisoners and said: "The situation is quite clearly significantly worse now than in June 2020."
He explained that Chew had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.
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The judge, Recorder Matthew Corbett-Jones, said Chew "showed a total disregard" for the safety of other road users "as you have in the past".
The judge said: "You avoided serious injury by luck and not through judgement, that vehicle was out of control."
Referring to the collision Recorder Corbett-Jones said it "doesn't take much imagination" to consider "what would have happened if someone had been in the way of that vehicle".
Chew was handed eight months in prison and disqualified from driving for three years after his release.
His licence was also endorsed.
