'Callous' man who 'rammed' police car on M5 while carrying young child jailed
The police car caught fire and the motorway was closed for 10 hours
Richard Vernalls
Elise Britten
A traffic jam caused by an accident in stormy weather on a British motorway - M5. (Image: Getty stock photo/ David Cannings-Bushell)
A man who drove at dangerously high speeds of up to 90mph on the M5 with a young child in his car before crashing into pursuing police has been jailed.
Wayne Smith was trying to evade officers when he lost control and "rammed" a marked patrol car, causing it to catch fire, during a crash that shut the motorway for 10 hours.
Jailing "callous" Smith for a total of two years and two months, a judge told him: "You exposed that child to the gravest danger in an appalling way, whilst you drove that car dangerously."
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Smith had assaulted a woman during a row at an address in Staffordshire, on August 4 last year before taking the child without the mother's knowledge and driving 260 miles to Newquay, Cornwall, in the early hours of the following day.
Police, alerted by the youngster's family, discovered two suicide notes on Smith's laptop and, trying to make contact, then sent him two text messages, which he failed to reply to.
When automatic number-plate recognition cameras picked up Smith's black Ford Focus in Somerset heading northbound on the M5 back towards the Midlands, police moved to stop his car.
Using specialist road policing tactics, officers tried to box Smith in between junction 22 and junction 21, near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, at about 9pm on August 5.
But 27-year-old Smith, of Mile Oak, Tamworth, "accelerated" away and veered left onto the hard shoulder to evade the marked cars, Oliver Woolhouse, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court.
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Smith undertook three vehicles, including a lorry, whose driver then watched as Smith passed in front, "swerved" to avoid another patrol car and lost control, ploughing straight into the side of a marked police BMW 4x4.
The police car, driven by PC Jason Smith, was hit with such force it flipped "multiple times", coming to rest on its roof, leaving the officer trapped as the vehicle then caught fire.
PC Smith, who was rescued but suffered multiple cuts, abrasions and post-traumatic stress, was "lucky to be alive", the judge told Smith.
Meanwhile, his smashed-up car came to rest in a cloud of smoke and dust further down the carriageway, the court heard.
Officers found Smith, who was not wearing a seatbelt, still in the driver's seat.
The child was discovered in a car seat, but had ended up in the footwell after Smith failed to fasten the youngster in, the judge heard.
In hospital, medics found evidence the youngster had not been given anything to drink for hours.
Appearing at a hearing conducted partly through Skype on Monday, Smith was sentenced following his conviction after trial in February of common assault, child cruelty, dangerous driving and causing actual bodily harm to the police officer.
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Smith, who was also acquitted of false imprisonment and sexual assault, was "an intelligent young man" with a masters degree in physics, an "unblemished record" and a "committed conservation worker", his barrister Paul Cliff said, in mitigation.
Judge Barry Berlin, sentencing, said that Smith had become "aggressive" with the woman before assaulting her.
Turning to the crash, the judge said he accepted Smith had not deliberately "rammed" the police 4x4, but that was "cold comfort" to the officer he injured.
Although the child suffered "mercifully" minor injuries, the judge added Smith, though an intelligent man, had given little or no thought to the consequences of his actions, which were described as "entirely self-centred and callous."
Jailing Smith for two years and two months, he also banned him from driving for three years and made him the subject of a restraining order.