An Oldham man who led police on a chase on the motorway after being spotted driving a vehicle with false plates has been jailed.

Bolton Crown Court heard perpetual motoring offender Marcel Doyle was spotted by officers in a Ford Fiesta late in the evening on Preston New Road.

But instead of pulling over he led police on a chase with his partner and another man in the vehicle.

While he was on the motorway officers attempted to form a box around Doyle to stop him but he swerved between lanes to intimidate officers and try to escape.

He left the M61 motorway and then went across a grass verge on a side road and his tyre burst and he lost control of the vehicle.

Along with the two passengers he made off from the vehicle but they were located with the help of a police helicopter.

Doyle, 45, had been due to go on trial at Manchester Magistrates’ Court but did not turn up so was found guilty in his absence.

He appeared in court again yesterday to be sentenced for dangerous driving, driving without a licence or insurance and failing to turn up at court as required.

Prosecutor Harriet Lavin revealed his extensive history of motoring offences and what police said happened during the incident.

She said: “The defendant swerved towards police cars.

“Officers say this was an attempt to intimidate them.

“He has 32 offences for 99 convictions.

“They began in 1993 when he was a youth.”

She said they included multiple counts of driving without a licence, insurance, driving dangerously and most recently he was in court in 2019 for an assault on an emergency worker.

Representing Doyle, from Otley Close in Chadderton, defence counsel David Thomson said he had made efforts to turn his life around since the incident.

He said: “The driving was over a relatively short period of time.

“The danger was minimal.

“The roads were relatively quiet.”

He presented Judge Nick Potter with a three-page letter he had written expressing remorse and asked for a sentence imposed to be suspended.

But the judge said there was no alternative to immediate custody.

He said: “I mean you no disrespect at all when I say you have a quite atrocious record of previous offending.”

The judge thanked Doyle for his letter, but said this had to be seen against the context of the offence and his record.

He jailed Doyle for eight months, banned him for driving for three years and four months and ordered that he take an extended retest before being allowed to get behind the wheel again.