A BANNED driver who rammed police cars during a 125 mph motorway chase has been jailed after he blew a final chance to break a lifelong cycle of offending.

Jonathan Walsh was given a suspended sentence after he wrote off a friend’s Audi Q7 during the pursuit but reoffended four times within two months.

He broke an order to stay away from an ex-partner three times and defied his driving ban by taking her for a ride which ended in him crashing after suffering a seizure.

He repeatedly went to her home in Cornwall and was found hiding in the attic when police arrested him in May this year. She had allowed him to resume contact despite a restraining order being in place.

Walsh, aged 38, of Knot Court, Stratton, near Bude, admitted breaching a restraining order and driving while disqualified. He was jailed for a total of two years and eight months by Judge James Patrick at Exeter Crown Court.

The sentence included the activation of 20 months of the two year suspended sentence which he received from a different judge at the same court in March for the original offences.

The judge told him: “You committed these offences within two months. You had been making some progress on the suspended sentence but you chose deliberately to ignore a court order three times and you drove while disqualified.

“You are a manipulative man and manipulated your former partner and the probation service. You have a shocking record for driving and this offence of driving while disqualified was committed during a suspended sentence for serious driving matters.

“You are aware that you suffer from seizures and you had one while driving and crashed. This is as bad an offence, in my judgment, as it is possible to imagine.”

Mr Colin McEwen, prosecuting, said Walsh broke the restraining order deliberately and repeatedly and was arrested after police searched his ex-partner’s house and found him hiding in the attic.

He told officers he did not feel he had breached the order because he had been invited into the house. His ex-partner wrote a victim personal statement saying she had been put under a lot of emotional pressure by him.

He was also arrested for driving while disqualified after crashing a car in North Cornwall. He should not have been driving at all and lost control after having a seizure.

Miss Felicity Payne, defending, said Walsh had been doing well on a drug rehabilitation order and the probation service are willing to continue working with him if he is allowed to return to the community.

He has mental health issues arising from a troubled childhood and suffers from seizures as a result of an attack while in prison.

Walsh was given the suspended sentence as a final chance by Judge Peter Johnson on March 22 this year.

In that case, Exeter Crown Court heard how he took a friend’s car from his home in Bude and drove it 175 miles to Swindon where he and two accomplices carried out a brazen shoplifting raid on a sports shop.

He then headed back to Cornwall at speed of more than 120 mph before police succeeded in boxing in the stolen Audi Q7 on the southbound M5 in East Devon and smashed the windows to try to get him out.

Walsh responded by reversing into a armed response vehicle so violently that he caused £8,200 damage, pushing it back far enough for him to escape the road block by hitting a second police car, ripping off a door and narrowly missing an officer.

He drove away down the hard shoulder at more than 100 mph before coming off the motorway at Exeter and crashing into two completely innocent motorists, writing off another car and the Audi.

He ran off but was chased down by police. He had only been out of prison for eight days, was banned from driving, and refused a breath test and drug swipe. He has 22 previous convictions for taking cars, and six for driving while disqualified.

Walsh  admitted aggravated vehicle taking, theft, handling stolen goods, bilking, and driving while disqualified and uninsured.