Teen's life saved by surgeons after pal crashed car during 100mph Yorkshire motorway chase

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A court heard the teenager suffered multiple injuries including severed arteries in his neck and shoulder after Sean Barnes lost control of his Ford Fiesta and ploughed through a fence. Barnes, 19, refused to stop after police spotted him speeding on the A650 at Wakefield.

Olivia Murray, prosecuting, said Barnes drove on to the M1 and turned his lights off as he reached 110mph.

Barnes undertook lorries on the hard shoulder and veered across the carriageway before laving the motorway at Stourton, Leeds.


The prosecutor said Barnes struck a kerb at a roundabout and the car went into the air before crashing.

His friend had to be cut from free from the wreckage before being taken to hospital.

He also suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung and a broken collar bone.

His face has also been permanently scarred.

Miss Murray said: “He doesn’t recall much other than telling the defendant to stop and accept the consequences.”

The prosecutor read a victim statement to the court on behalf of the victim.


He described how he had been friends with Barnes for eight years leading up to the incident.

He said: “He just wouldn’t listen to me.

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“I knew he had an over-inflated ego and had he got away from the police he would have bragged about it.”

He also described how he is left with a permanent reminder of what happened whenever he looks in the mirror and sees his scars.

He added: “I see how people look at me when they see me. They are clearly curious about what happened to me but are too scared to ask.

“I used to feel so confident about myself, with my whole life ahead of me.

“When I think back to that night and what happened to me I feel an overwhelming feeling of anger.”

He also described how Barnes had been to see him in hospital after the incident but said the defendant went on to block him on social media.

He said: “I am now left with the impression that Sean is unremorseful for his actions and seems to be getting on with his life while my life will never be the same again.”

Barnes, of Branstone Grove, Ossett, pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

He was sent to custody for 20 months.

James Lake, mitigating, said Barnes had not been drinking or taking drugs before the incident and had no previous convictions.

He said: “We will never understand why he did it. He was insured and when one looks at the life of the defendant there is simply no way of rationalising it.”

Sentencing Barnes, judge Christopher Batty said: “You are 19 and have worked since you left school.

“You are intelligent, honest, hardworking.

“You have done well for yourself. You are very well thought of by a number of people.

“All that belies what you did on this particular night.”

Jailing Barnes, the judge said: “I take no pleasure in this and your parents are clearly devastated and I understand their grief.

“But I am afraid it is my public duty, for an offence of this seriousness, to send you to custody.”