A learner motorcycle rider who led police on a 70mph chase along narrow residential Carlisle roads late at night before falling from his bike at a junction has been spared immediate prison.
Christopher Mahoney, 39, was seen by officers at the junction of Edgehill and Cumwhinton roads just before midnight on April 8.
He was on a Yamaha 125cc machine, Carlisle Crown Court heard, and looked at PCs before his scrambler-type bike wobbled slightly, causing them to follow.
But Mahoney accelerated despite blue lights being activated. Dash-cam footage captured pursuing police reaching speeds of around 70mph on narrow residential roads lined with cars as pedestrians walked along, as they sought to keep up.
Mahoney came to grief at a junction with Pennine Way, falling from his bike while preparing to make a left turn. “He attempts to get back on and start the bike but is happily tackled to the ground (by police),” Tim Evans, prosecuting, told the court this morning.
When interviewed, Mahoney, of The Beeches, Great Corby, said in a police interview he had panicked in the knowledge that he had not fully passed his rider training. “He was asked what members of the public would think. He replied ‘they would think I was an idiot’,” said Mr Evans. “He described it as a stupid mistake.”
Barrister Brendan Burke, giving mitigation, said Mahoney had sought to move his bike to prevent it being stolen amid a spate of thefts, and was planning to use a van to transport it. “That didn’t materialise so he took the chance of driving it a few miles, wrongly gauging that he wouldn’t be stopped,” said Mr Burke.
Recorder Tony Hawks noted Mahoney’s appalling start to life with offending committed in his younger years, but also that he has been out of trouble for more than a decade and now had a stable relationship with three children.
As a result, the judge suspended a six-month prison sentence for a year, and ordered Mahoney to undergo rehabilitation work with the probation service. Mahoney was also banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to pass an extended driving test.
“Looking at the footage it is not entirely clear you knew how to ride this bike properly. You ended up falling off it,” Recorder Hawks told him.
