A YOUNG drink-driver who led police on a high-speed chase, and was only stopped by a police marksman, has been spared jail.

Jonathan Trafford, 22, was confronted by an armed response constable when he had driven his Audi at high speed on the main road between Rawtenstall and Burnley.

Trafford, of Co-operative Buildings, Cliviger, was given a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, and banned from driving for 12 months at Burnley Crown Court.

The driver had been ‘boxed in’ by police after a chase which ended in the Healey Wood Road area. But as he was about to drive off, the gun-toting officer, in an ‘off-arm’ stance, ‘brought him to his senses’.

He had been committed for sentence by Pennine magistrates after he admitted dangerous driving, failing to stop, driving with excess alcohol and having no insurance or licence.