A YOUNG driver showed "arrogant disregard" when he fled from police in his BMW - only to stop when he smashed into a car head-on.

Syed Kazmi, of Bolingbrooke Street, Little Horton, appeared before Bradford Crown Court yesterday to be sentenced for dangerous driving on the morning of February 4 this year.

Recorder of Bradford Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told him: "You are 20, you will be 21 in a month.

"You have no previous convictions, you have nothing to your detriment.

"Your, if I may say, salt of the earth family are here. People of distinction, quality, who have no experience of the court system.

"Hard working, decent folk."

He said Kazmi had been spotted by officers driving at speed and they wanted to stop him.

"Had you stopped, it may well have been that matters would not have come to this court by any means," said the judge.

"When the police put on blue lights, the driver, you, me, anybody, stops.

"You didn't stop, you sped off."

Police first spotted Kazmi driving at speed on Planetrees Road, Laisterdyke. Officers pulled up behind the BMW he was driving while the car was waiting in traffic and followed it before putting on the blue lights.

Kazmi accelerated away and a chase of two-and-a-half minutes followed, during which he failed to give way at junctions, broke the speed limit, sped down a narrow alley way at 40 mph and caused other vehicles to take evasive action.

The chase came to an end on Barkerend Road, when Kazmi had a head-on crash with a stationary Toyota Auris, which a family with children were in at the time. No-one was injured.

The police car stopped along the offside of the BMW, but the front-seat passenger ran off and Kazmi reversed back with "some determination", causing damage to the police car.

Officers smashed the window of the car to detain him and he made no comment when he was taken to the police station.

The court heard Kazmi had a a full, clean licence, no previous convictions, had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and had "sincere remorse" over the incident, but at the time had been associating with people he is no longer associated with.

Jessica Heggie, for Kazmi, told the court: "He has been frank and honest around home, his peers, his elders as to his criminality and has asked for support and forgiveness.

"They all find his actions to be entirely out of character."

In sentencing, Judge Durham Hall said Kazmi shown "arrogant disregard" and after taking personal mitigation and his early plea into account, sentenced him to seven months in a Young Offenders' Institute, but said he could not suspend the sentence.

Kazmi will also be disqualified from driving for 15-and-a-half months.

He will also have to take a retest and will pay a victim surcharge.