Jailed: Collier Row man who crashed stolen car in Romford

A Collier Row man who crashed a stolen car and narrowly avoided hitting two police officers who tried to stop him has been jailed for 18 months.

Basildon Crown Court heard how officers spotted a Vauxhall Insignia in Ongar, Essex, on March 9 and identified it as having been stolen from a house in Basildon two months earlier.

They attempted to stop the car but it carried on and was seen driving 50mph in a 30mph zone before driving the wrong way around a roundabout.

The car was also seen driving through stationary traffic, damaging two other vehicles, and narrowly avoided two police officers who were on foot patrol in the area at the time and attempted to stop it.

The driver - later found to be 24-year-old Kalvin Allen - eventually crashed it into a railing in Pettits Lane, Romford, and he and the other occupants were arrested.

Allen, of Dereham Place, appeared at Basildon Crown Court on Friday, May 29 when he pleaded guilty to burglary, aggravated taking of a vehicle without the owner’s consent, two counts of driving while disqualified, and two counts of driving without insurance.

Some of the counts related to an incident on March 8 where a window of a house in Herongate, near Brentwood, was forced open. Nothing was stolen.

Shortly before, witnesses had seen two men get out of a dark car while the driver – later identified as Allen - waited outside.

Allen was jailed for a total of 18 months, which included six months for breaching a suspended sentence.

He was also banned from driving for 21 months and is not allowed to drive again until he has passed an extended driving test.

PC Jonathan Stephenson, of Brentwood CID, said: “Kalvin Allen was not only involved in a burglary - which is an invasive and distressing crime - but he put people at risk through the manner of his driving while trying to evade police.”