A TEENAGER smashed a stolen car into another vehicle then jumped out of the car with a baseball bat in a gang confrontation.

At Manchester Crown Court, 18-year-old Jenson McNally was sentenced to eight months in a young offenders’ institution, suspended for two years, after admitting two counts of aggravated vehicle taking, possessing a baseball bat and having no insurance.

Via Skype conferencing, Duncan Wilcock, prosecuting, told how McNally was driving a Ford Fiesta, which had previously been stolen from Rossendale, in Higher Swan Lane, Bolton, at 4pm on March 17.

It drove slowly past a parked Vauxhall Corsa and then returned as four men got out of the Corsa to walk to a nearby house.

“The Fiesta drove at speed towards at least one of those males and collided with the Vauxhall Corsa and shunted it approximately 6ft,” said Mr Wilcock.

When one of the men threw a stone, shattering the Fiesta’s rear window, McNally jumped from the car with a baseball bat, accompanied by three other youths.

One of them, a 14-year-old boy, climbed into the Corsa’s driver’s seat and drove off.

During the fracas, McNally was struck over the head with a piece of wood and then he and another youth ran off.

Half an hour later the police spotted the Corsa in Stretton Road, Deane, with McNally standing beside it.

“The teenager jumped into the car and reversed, at speed, 100 yards towards the officer before doing a handbrake turn, abandoning the vehicle and running off.

McNally, of Towers Avenue, Bolton, was arrested at his home the following day.

The court heard that McNally has previous convictions for 12 offences, but Andrea Lock, defending, stressed that he had remained out of trouble for 14 months before the latest crimes.

She said that McNally was a teenager with “significant problems” and a difficult childhood.

But she added: “He is not a young man without hope. He is under no illusion that this is a make-or-break time for him”

Judge Timothy Stead said that, had McNally been sent to custody immediately, he would only serve a few weeks and instead opted to impose an intensive community order including 35 days of rehabilitation activities.

He told the teenager: “Nobody wants to see you having a life of violence and crime and ending back in prison.”