A prolific criminal has been jailed for two years after a 90mph road chase through the streets of York and a later incident in which he threatened a store manager with a drug needle.
Daniel Pullman, 31, was spotted by police after speeding down Blossom Street on his Kawasaki 600 motorbike. When officers activated the blue lights he took no heed, York Crown Court heard.
The speed dial was teetering on 90mph as Pullman tried to evade the pursuing police car on the busy residential street, said prosecutor Jazmine Lee.
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Pullman – who had no licence or insurance – crashed the motorbike as he turned into a side street, but then got out and tried to run off as oil spilled from the vehicle. An officer chased him on foot and handcuffed him despite injuring his leg.
Pullman was arrested, hauled into custody and released under investigation, by which time he received a 16-week suspended prison sentence for previous shoplifting offences.
Stealing spree
In August – around the time he was given the suspended prison term and not long after the driving offences – Pullman went on another thieving spree.
It began at the Co-op in East Parade, Heworth, on August 23, when he stole £276 of chocolate.
He then targeted the Co-op store in Paragon Street, York, from which he stole £37 of goods. He had already been barred from that shop. He then returned to the store twice in the same day and stole another £86 of chocolate, said Ms Lee.
But it was at the Food Warehouse in York where Pullman’s spree turned dangerous. On this occasion, the store manager, who was named in court, saw Pullman going to steal five bottles of Jack Daniel’s whisky worth £100 and tried to stop him.
Pullman, a drug user, ran out of the shop and the manager chased after him, said Ms Lee.
He caught up with him in the nearby Morrison’s car park, where Pullman, holding a bottle of whisky, turned around and said to him: “I’ve got a needle – don’t touch me.”
Although the needle wasn’t produced, the manager could see the plunger and was in “fear (and) distressed”.
‘It was incredibly scary’
Pullman, of Rowntree Avenue, York, was ultimately arrested for all the thefts. He was charged with several counts of shoplifting, along with dangerous driving and having no licence or insurance in relation to the police chase.
He admitted all the offences and appeared for sentence via video link on Thursday after being remanded in custody.
In a statement read out in court, the store manager, described as a family man, said: “I was in fear of him assaulting me with the needle.
“That needle could have been anywhere; it could have had anything on it. It was incredibly scary.”
Pullman had 39 previous convictions for 88 offences including 41 for theft and kindred matters and 10 for motoring offences.
Fiona Clancy, mitigating, said Pullman had been getting into trouble since his childhood following a traumatic upbringing in which he slept in doorways.
He started taking hard drugs from a young age which led to a “cycle of offending” and homelessness. He had only been released from his last prison stretch in March this year.
Jailing Pullman for two years, judge Simon Hickey said that “anyone who threatens to pull a needle on a man who is simply doing his duty” must go to prison.
He cited Pullman’s “vast record”, notwithstanding “the miserable start to your life”. Pullman was also given a two-and-a-half-year driving ban for the motoring offences.