A drugged-up driver who led police on a high-speed chase which ended with him crashing into a tree and badly injuring his girlfriend has been jailed for forty months.

Louis Bloomfield, 42, sped off with his girlfriend Amy Lunn in the front passenger seat when police in Coleford, Gloucestershire, signalled him to stop.

In the next eight minutes, with police in pursuit, he covered a distance that would take 20 minutes at normal speeds, Gloucester Crown Court was told yesterday (January 4).

Finally, he hit a tree and his girlfriend suffered a severe spinal injury which needed surgery to fuse bones and insert a steel supportive rod, the court was told.

Jailing Bloomfield, of Gloucester Road, Coleford, Judge Michael Cullum also banned him from driving for 56 months and told him: "This was a very serious example of dangerous driving where you put a huge number of people at risk of being killed or injured while endangering the life of the police officer in pursuit.

"You have an unenviable record of previous convictions, most of which appear to be drug-related, and constantly driving whilst disqualified. You have served a number of prison sentences.

"Your girlfriend felt powerless to stop you driving on this occasion. She didn't deserve to have her back broken. It is a testament to the doctors that she is walking again.

"You seemed to enjoy goading the police while playing with people's lives.

"And for good measure you were five time over the drug-drive limit."

Prosecutor David Scutt said the chase began when police saw Bloomfield's Vauxhall Tigra in Coleford on November 19th last year and signalled him to stop.

He collided with a police van and a pursuit ensued along Newland Street in Coleford, out to Clearwell and onto the B4231 Bream Road.

It was the eighth time Bloomfield had driven whilst disqualified in two years, said Mr Scutt.

Steven Young defending said: "His driving record is appalling. He has pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and his girlfriend is out of hospital and is now walking unaided.

"Bloomfield admits there was no reasonable explanation for his bad driving, other than he panicked. He desperately regrets doing what he did."

Bloomfield admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving whilst disqualified, dangerous driving and driving without insurance on November 19, 2020.

The judge jailed Bloomfield for 40 months and disqualified him from driving for 56 months. His licence will be endorsed with the other driving offences and he was ordered to pay a victim surcharge.