A DRIVER repeatedly rammed a police van after being cornered whilst driving a stolen car.

Hayfaa Azeez smashed into the front of the van four times before trying to drive around the vehicle and his BMW became stuck on a grass verge.

Police smashed the BMW’s windows with their batons before dragging Azeez and his passenger out of the car.

At Bolton Crown Court 22-year-old barber Azeez pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and he was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years.

Timothy Greenald, prosecuting, told how, in the early hours of Christmas Eve, police officers were patrolling Bolton town centre in a van as part of an operation aimed at combating anti-social behaviour.

One of the officers in the van spotted a BMW Z4 turning from Manor Street into Brown Street.

“It appeared the car was not under full control with its rear end fishtailing somewhat,” said Mr Greenald.

Brown Street leads to a dead end and the BMW did a three-point turn and began heading back up the street, coming nose to nose with the following police van.

Trapped, BMW driver attempted to escape.

“He drove forward and rammed into the front of the police vehicle,” said Mr Greenald, who added that the BMW then reversed and rammed the van twice more.

Azeez then attempted to drive around the van, hitting the corner of the van before coming to a halt stuck on a grass verge.

Several officers who had been in the van, surrounded the car, which had locked doors and smashed its windows with batons in order to get to the occupants.

Mr Greenald said one officer suffered a small cut to his hand and another had an ankle injury but the BMW had not driven directly at anyone.

It was later found that the BMW had been stolen in a burglary and was being driven on false plates.

But Mr Greenald said the prosecution accept Azeez’s explanation that he had borrowed the car from a friend and did not know it was stolen.

A small amount of cannabis was found on Azeez.

“That might have been the motive for trying to avoid being stopped by police,” said Mr Greenald.

At a previous magistrates’ court hearing Azeez, of Woodvale Avenue, Great Lever, was fined £105 for possessing the drug.

The court heard the damage to the police van’s front wings, bumper and lights cost more than £2,000 to repair.

Ben Kaufman, defending, stressed that Azeez has no previous convictions and has his own barber’s shop where he works to support his family.

“On the evening in question he had borrowed the vehicle from a friend. He had no knowledge that the vehicle was stolen,” he said.

“He panicked and knew he had been drinking. He made a terrible mistake and severe error of judgement.”

Sentencing Azeez, Judge Graeme Smith told him: “What you did could be described as stupid and reckless. It is very fortunate something more serious did not happen. It does appear that this was out of character.”

In addition to the suspended prison sentence Azeez was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and was placed on a three-month, 8pm to 6am electronically tagged curfew.

He was also banned from driving for two years after which he will have to sit an extended retest.