A DISQUALIFIED driver who narrowly avoided going to prison last year for leading police on an 80mph chase was locked up yesterday for getting behind the wheel again.

Anwar Baig was told by a Teesside Crown Court judge that he was “let off comparatively lightly” when he got a suspended sentence 15 months ago.

Jailing him for eight months, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, told the 27-year-old: “No doubt you were told if you breached it, it would be custody.”

Baig, of Humber Place, Darlington, was given the suspended term in March last year for offences of dangerous driving and aggravated vehicle taking.

The court heard how he took the keys to his partner’s car without permission.

He failed to stop when police tried to pull him over for a stop check in the early hours of Sunday, October 19, 2014.

Baig then got involved in a high-speed pursuit, travelling at 80 miles per hour in a 30 zone, rolled the vehicle over after hitting a street sign and then fled from the scene.

In April this year, he got behind the wheel of his partner’s Vauxhall Corsa again - when it was claimed she became ill while driving him and their children home.

Defence barrister Kieran Rainey said the father-of-two drove just a few hundred yards from the busy McMullen Road to Yarm Road retail park for safety.

He said his partner “felt a real twinge in her back” and had to pull onto the kerb, however it was too dangerous for any of the occupants to get out.

Mr Rainey told the court that there were “extenuating circumstances” and asked the judge to consider another suspended sentence for the sake of his family.

He said Baig’s partner was hoping to study as a nurse, and the support he provides in looking after the children would be lost if he was locked up.

“They did an extremely stupid thing, and she accepts she is partly to blame,” said Mr Rainey.

“But it is a wholly different arena to the other driving.

“The thoughts of their children’s safety completely over-rode any thoughts they had about his driving ban, just wanting to get the car to safety.

“This is a case where you could give him an additional chance with a warning that this cannot be repeated.”

Baig, who admitted driving while disqualified and without insurance, was also banned from the roads for three years.