A CAR owner whose vehicle was set on fire after a police chase made a bogus claim to insurers to say it had been stolen.

Jonathan Lythe tried to hoodwink the authorities and get a £9,500 pay-out, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Police tried to stop his car after it left the car park at the Coronation Inn on Acklam Road, Middlesbrough, on June 28 last year.

Reports suggested the occupants might be drunk, and bottles had been thrown out of windows, said prosecutor Emma Atkinson.

The car did not stop and reached speeds of 60mph in 30mph zones before the driver lost control and pursuers lost sight of it.

It was later found abandoned and on fire in Eagle Park in nearby Marton, and while it was being recovered, Lythe called police to report it stolen.

The following day, he contacted his insurance company, Hastings Direct, and repeated the account to them.

Neither the police nor the insurers believed the claim, and Judge Howard Crowson called it "a hopeless story".

The judge said he suspected somebody else had been driving, but Lythe was taking the blame, and there was no evidence to prove the owner set it alight.

Duncan McReddie, mitigating, said: "There is likely to have been some form of encouragement from others in the vehicle.

"Given his youth and naivety at the time and that he had never so much as had a parking ticket, he tried to extricate himself from a position he never thought he would be in.

"Mr Lythe was trying to the correct and decent thing and took the responsibility for what he did. Circumstances overwhelmed him and panic set in."

Mr McReddie added: "There has been no offending before this, and none since.

"Mr Lythe doesn't just have a job, he has a career, and he is pursuing it with some vigour."

Lythe, of St Paul's Road, Thornaby, near Stockton, admitted perverting the course of justice and fraud, and was given a ten-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, with 180 hours of unpaid community work.

Judge Crowson told him: "Some foolish things were done, and you seem to have taken the burden of responsibility on your own shoulders.

"I know this car was driven badly, but I have no reason to think you were the driver, and it was set on fire but there is no evidence you did that.

"Somebody thought it was a good idea and you ran with it, to call the police and report it stolen.

"No-one believed you, no-one believed you right from the beginning.

"It was a hopeless attempt. You are not a very good liar – but perhaps that's a good thing."