This footage shows the horrifying moment a car flips onto its roof after smashing into a wall following a high-speed police chase.
Video released by West Yorkshire Police shows the moment banned driver Liam Woods, 25, smashes into a garden wall in Bradford. The VW Golf he was driving can be seen flipping high into the air before crashing to a stop on its roof.
Moments afterwards, Woods, of Kirkdale Crescent, Farnley, Leeds, boasted he would have ‘smoked’ the pursuing police car if he’d known where he was going. Woods had previously been jailed in January 2023 for two years for causing serious injury by dangerous driving and he was “wanted on recall” for that sentence when he was involved in the pursuit earlier this month.
Bradford Crown Court heard on Monday, December 30 that Woods reached speeds of up to 100mph as he tried to get away from the police vehicle during a night-time incident which began in Tong Road, Bradford, and ended with a serious crash in the Gomersal Hill Top area. During the pursuit on the night of December 5, Woods ran red lights and drove at high speeds towards oncoming traffic, causing other motorists to take evasive action.
Prosecutor Daisy Wrigley said the VW Golf was doing 90mph on the “narrow winding road” towards Gomersal Hill Top. As Woods went through another red light at 70mph he hit another vehicle and lost control of the Golf.
Dashcam footage from the pursuing police vehicle was shown in court and captured images of the overturned Golf embedded in a garden wall. Miss Wrigley said the collision also destroyed a bus stop and a telegraph pole and one of the officers described the incident as “some of the worst driving he had witnessed”.
Liam Woods
(Image: WYP)
Woods tried to run off after smashing out the rear window of the Golf and his female passenger was also able to climb out of the wrecked vehicle. After he was detained by police in a nearby garden Woods boasted: ”I’d have smoked you if I had known where I was going.”
Woods pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and driving without insurance two days after the crash. On Monday he was sentenced to 16 months in jail.
The car flipped after crashing into the garden wall
(Image: WYP)
Woods, who has a record of driving convictions, was banned from driving again for two years and eight months and he must still pass an extended driving test.
Judge Jonathan Gibson told Woods via a prison video link that he might easily have caused a fatality or very serious injury that night. “When you’re behind the wheel of a car you’re clearly a very highly dangerous person driving in the way that you have been,” the judge told Woods.
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