A POLICE helicopter was called in to help officers keep track of a motorist who made a high speed dash up the M5 from Wellington to Burnham-on-Sea.

Ben Wood, 32, took off after a cop in an unmarked police car made a computer check on his car at the Shell garage outside the town at 1.30am on July 13 and asked for his documents.

He raced along the M5 approach road and up the north-bound slip road at about 80mph and was doing 100mph at Taunton Deane Services, said Emma Martin, prosecuting, at Taunton Crown Court.

Other police officers were alerted and the helicopter was mobilised as his speed reached 113mph between junctions 25 and 24 and he drove on the hard shoulder to ‘undertake’ two lorries. After reaching 116mph, he turned off the motorway at junction 23 and headed to Burnham-on-Sea, at speeds of 50 to 65 in a 30mph area.

The helicopter followed as he stopped in Fairway Close and he and another man in the car were then taken to the ground and arrested by other officers. Wood refused to take a breath test and later pleaded guilty to failing to give a specimen, dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and driving uninsured.

Patrick Mason, defending, said Wood was involved with drugs at an early age and committed a number of offences, sometimes involving motor vehicles, but also including robbery associated with his drug problem which resulted in a six-year prison sentence. He was released in April 2015 and wanted to start a new life and ‘live in this area’ but, two weeks after these offences, he was sentenced in Sussex to 12 weeks for other matters.

Wood, who appeared by video link from Lewes Prison, was sentenced to 16 months and disqualified for two years.

Judge David Ticehurst said it was clear from his record that he showed ‘a marked disregard for the law and had involved himself in the world of drugs’. If he continued, he would spend longer and longer spells in prison and “when you look back on your life in old age, you will have spent more time locked up in custody than you have out and about”.

“It was exceptionally dangerous to drive like you did and it’s more by luck than judgement that no one was killed or injured. Undertaking on the motorway could have led to a catastrophic accident. Someone could have died and you would be looking at a substantial term of imprisonment”.