A DANGEROUS “lunatic” driver who refused to stop for police during a car chase after claiming he feared they were gangsters has escaped going to jail.

Ali Alenazi, aged 24, of Hood Road, Newport, was blasted by a judge for coming up with “arrant nonsense” at the tax payers’ expense.

He had been on trial at Cardiff Crown Court for dangerous driving but changed his plea to guilty at the start of his defence.

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The jury heard how the 24-year-old defendant was told to pull over by two plain-clothed officers in an unmarked police car after “driving like a lunatic” on the M4 in Newport.

He undertook cars and made motorists brake sharply, the court was told.

The jury told how the policemen then drove up alongside Alenazi in slow-moving heavy Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic and told him to pull over after showing him their warrant cards.

Prosecutor Eugene Egan said the defendant left the motorway at the High Cross slip road before losing them after a high speed chase through the city.

In his police interview, Alenazi told them: “I thought, ‘I’m going to get battered.’ I wanted to save my life. I thought they were gangsters.”

Mr Egan and the driver the police car, Detective Constable Stephen Davies, read out the defendant’s police interview to the court.

The officer told Alenazi when he was initially questioned by him: “You were driving like a lunatic in and out of traffic. You were flying in and out of traffic. I had to slam my brakes on.”

DC Davies added: “How many gangsters drive around in white shirts and ties, holding up a warrant card and telling you, ‘I’m the police’?

“This is nonsense that you thought you were going to be lynched.”

The defendant had claimed he had been sent “horrible texts” by someone unknown to him threatening him before the incident.

When Alenazi was about to put forward a defence that he had acted under duress, something he had not mentioned in his defence statement, Judge David Wynn Morgan asked the jury to leave court so he could speak to counsel.

He lambasted Alenazi through his barrister Paul Hewitt, asking him, “Does he think the members of the jury were born yesterday? This is arrant nonsense. When one thinks of the public money being spent on this case, it’s quite staggering.”

After consulting with Mr Hewitt, Alenazi admitted dangerous driving while at the wheel of a Seat Leon on September 21 2018.

Judge Wynn Morgan asked the jury to return a guilty verdict as a formality.

The court was told, following Alenazi’s conviction, that the defendant had several driving convictions, including driving whilst disqualified and drug driving.

Mr Hewitt said his client was a “well-educated man”.

Alenazi was jailed for eight months, suspended for 24 months, ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work, and go on a thinking skills course for 19 days.

He was banned from driving for two years and ordered to sit an extended retest at the end of his disqualification.

Alenazi was ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs and a £140 victim surcharge.