LEADING police on a high-speed pursuit, ignoring their sirens and crashing into a car driven by a 19-year-old and carrying a pregnant woman and an infant, has put Christopher Joel Redman behind bars for more than two years.
It started on Stewart Avenue in Hamilton South about 5.30pm on January 5 when police came across Redman driving dangerously. They saw him again driving along Wallsend and Maitland Roads at Sandgate where he failed to stop, and the pursuit began.
Redman, who has never held a driver's licence but nonetheless had been disqualified from holding a licence until 2026, drove the car about 20 metres into marshland before trying to flee from police on foot.
He was arrested at Hexham and was remanded in custody. Redman appeared in the Newcastle District Court on Monday via audiovisual link from Kemspey Correctional Centre where he pleaded guilty to one count of driving dangerously during a police pursuit and failing to stop.
Other matters taken into account on sentence included using an unregistered, uninsured car, fail to give particulars to other driver, driving while disqualified, and drive with illicit drugs in his bloodstream.
The court heard that Redman ignored warning lights and continued with an aggressive course of driving including a collision, although nobody was injured.
He was sentenced to an aggregate term of two years and four months, starting June 5, 2022, and ending on October 4, 2024, with a non-parole period of one year and four months, making him eligible for release on parole on October 4, 2023. He was also disqualified from driving for two years.
