A drink driver sped off from police and then jumped out of his still moving car.

The car crashed into another vehicle and John Benjamin Davies fell onto the pavement outside his home in Darwen Drive, Penymynydd.

But that did not stop him running off through a garden and jumping over fences.

He got away at that stage -  but was later arrested after he was tracked down by a police search dog.

When caught Davies said that he was sorry. “I have been really stupid,” he told officers.

Davies, 28, asked officers if he would end up in prison – a questioned which would be answered in court, explained prosecuting barrister John Philpotts.

Judge Niclas Parry, sitting at Mold Crown Court, jailed him for a total of eight months after he admitted drink driving, disqualified driving, no insurance, and failing to stop.

Davies, who was in breach of a suspended prison sentence, was banned from driving for three years.

The judge said that it was his third drink driving conviction in a little over 12 months.

Four months after being given the chance of a suspended sentence for a serious offence of violence he had reoffended, Judge Parry said.

He had made “a really determined effort to escape apprehension.”

Judge Parry told him: “The time has come for you to understand that you simply cannot go on driving in public, at speed, over the drink drive limit.”

Mr Philpotts said that it was at 12.45am on September 12 that police saw the defendant driving a four by four vehicle along the A550 towards Broughton.

Officers had received intelligence that the driver was over the drink drive limit.

Officers signalled to him to stop with their blue lights and siren, but to no avail.

He accelerated away along Penymynydd Road reaching 48 mph in a 30 mph zone.

The defendant pulled up in Darwen Drive, but jumped out of the vehicle before it stopped.

He fell onto the pavement and the vehicle continued to move forward and hit another vehicle.

But he ran off and an officer gave chase as the defendant got over a fence, ran through a rear garden and back onto another street.

He was able to give the officer the slip at that stage, but a police search dog was deployed.

Davies had tried to hide his clothing. When found, his trousers were soaking wet and he smelt of intoxicants.

“I am sorry. I have been really stupid,” he told police.

He initially denied that he had been driving, but provided an alcohol reading of 77 microgrammes, more than twice the legal limit of 35.

The defendant asked police officers what he would be charged with  - and the judge commented that would have been obvious particularly as he had done the same thing twice before.

He confirmed that he had been driving while disqualified, an offence he had committed before, and asked if it meant that he would be going to prison.

“He will find out the answer to that question today,” said Mr Philpotts.

Interviewed, he said that he had popped to the shop to get some cigarettes in his wife’s vehicle.

He saw the blue lights behind him and conceded that he had ample opportunity to stop, but had failed to do so.

Defending barrister Gemma Gordon said that her client had been remanded in custody which had been his first taste of imprisonment.

It had an effect not only on him, but also on his family.

He did not seek to minimise what he had done or to offer any excuses.

The defendant had issues with alcohol, had shown remorse for his behaviour, and had completed an alcohol awareness course while on remand.

If the court was prepared to draw back from immediate custody then were alternative sentences available in the community, Miss Gordon said.