A dangerous driver who lost control of a stolen VW Golf before smashing through a fence was caught on CCTV running away from the wreckage.
Mason Hinnighan was spotted throwing his mobile phone onto the roof of a nearby building before returning the nextday and asking for it back.
The 23-year-old added to his legal woes when further CCTV footage showed him arriving in another car he was driving without a valid licence, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Kathryn Wetherley, prosecuting, said Hinninghan had stolen the VW Golf from Grangetown before taking police on a high-speed chase along the A66 on November 17 last year.
She said: “The car made off from police and went through a red lights.
“A pursuit went on through the Grangetown area and then onto the A66 where the vehicle continued going through red traffic lights and reached speeds of more than 110mph, and entered roundabouts at speed.
“After a pursuit of three minutes, the police lost sight of the vehicle due to the speed it was travelling.
The police located it in the Lidl car park on Cargo Fleet Lane after it had crashed through a wooden fence and abandoned.”
Miss Wetherley said police spotted Hinninghan nearby and searched him but found nothing to connect him to the stolen Golf.
Later that day, staff from a timber firm contacted police saying a man had come into the store asking about a mobile phone and telling them he had thrown it on the roof during a police chase.
They handed over the CCTV of the crash and of the defendant returning to the scene to try and retrieve his mobile phone.
The court heard the defendant had previous offences of dangerous driving on his record following another police chase.
Hinninghan, of Moorgate, Eston, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, failing to stop for police, two charges of driving without a licence, two charges of driving without insurance and theft of a motor vehicle.
John Nixon, mitigating, said: “He did plead guilty at the earliest opportunity and that demonstrates a degree of remorse that has been mentioned in his pre-sentence report.”
Recorder Peter Makepeace KC sentenced the dangerous driver to 16 months behind bars.
He said: “You were driving at extraordinary speeds at 110mph at one point, you drove through red lights, you were being pursued by the police car – it was an extraordinarily dangerous piece of driving.
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“You couldn’t have stopped that car if somebody had been in the way – you would have killed someone.
“That’s the problem with your offending, you might think it’s a giggle, you might think it’s a hoot at the time, but every time you get in a car and behave like this you are putting people at risk of losing their lives.”
Hinninhan was also banned from driving for 20 months and told he must pass an extended test before getting back behind the wheel.
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