DANGEROUS driver Mark Yearwood has escaped a custodial sentence after a high-speed chase with police through a residential area.

Yearwood appeared before Aylesbury Crown Court on Tuesday for sentencing after a jury previously found him guilty of driving a Ford Orion dangerously in various roads on April 4 last year.

The 23-year-old from Whitelands Road, High Wycombe, had claimed police had harassed him and that his driving had not been dangerous as he was going home from work.

But Jill Hurworth, prosecuting, said Yearwood drove at grossly excessive speeds, up to 65mph in a 30mph built-up area and over numerous hazards and failed to indicate at various turns.

The court heard how he also drove on the wrong side of some bollards before he finally mounted a kerb and skidded to a stop in Chiltern Avenue, in High Wycombe, where he lived at the time.

Tamala McGee, defending, said Yearwood's conviction and interim driving ban had cost him his job which had prospects with British Telecom and currently he was looking for new employment.

Judge Christopher Tyrer said that although Yearwood had shown a complete disregard of the risk to other people's safety by driving dangerously with "a potentially lethal weapon" a car for which he could normally face imprisonment, the contents of a pre-sentence report and efforts by Yearwood to mend his ways merited a non-custodial sentence.

He imposed a Community Punishment Order of 80 hours' community service work coupled with two years' probation on Yearwood and disqualified him from driving for 18 months.