A MAN who took youngsters for a “scary” ride in the back of his van has been spared a jail sentence.

Trevor Hallcup took four children, aged between 11 and 14, for a journey in his vehicle in east Durham.

But the youngsters’ parents were oblivious to the trip and 32-year-old Hallcup was later arrested and charged by police with child abduction.

The defendant, of Dunn Road, Peterlee, pleaded guilty to four such 

offences on May 2, 2015 at a hearing last September.

Judge Simon Hickey, sitting at Durham Crown Court, gave Hallcup a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and a 30-day rehabilitation activity order.

He was also handed a four month-long electronically tagged night-time curfew and made subject to an indefinite restraining order.

Hallcup, who uses a wheelchair, did not appear before the judge and was sentenced instead over a video link to Teesside Magistrates Court, in Middlesbrough, which has wheelchair access.

There was anger when relatives of the victims tried to get access to a room where Hallcup was present, in order to hear the proceedings, only to be turned away by court officials.

He had denied further charges of false imprisonment and careless driving, which were not proceeded with by the Crown.

At a previous hearing his legal representative, Jane Waugh, said he suffered from a number of medical problems and was on prescribed strong medication.

Hallcup’s latest convictions follow a six-month jail sentence he was given in February last year for dangerous driving and driving while disqualified.

He was pursued by police and said by a judge to have driven “like a maniac” during a 13-minute chase in Peterlee in which he repeatedly exceeded speed limits and drove on pavements and a grassed area.

That time he had a “petrified” female passenger with him, who was said to have bailed out midway through the journey.

Hallcup was also previously fined £440 with £1,493 costs by magistrates in Peterlee in October 2015 after being found guilty in his absence of running an illegal tattooing and body piercing business in filthy conditions at his home, following a Durham County Council investigation.