A man has been jailed for 14 months for crashing in a high speed chase while wanted by the police.

Albanian national Jurgest Myftari injured two people when his uninsured VW Passat collided with a Land Rover in Main Street, Wilsden, on April 17, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Myftari, 23, was at large at the time after being caught growing cannabis, prosecutor Nick Adlington said.

He was sentenced today on a video link to HMP Leeds where he was remanded in custody. The court heard he was likely to be deported when he had served his time behind bars.

Mr Adlington said Myftari wrote off the £20,000 Land Rover before crashing into a wall.

He fled on foot but a public-spirited postman pointed him out to the police hiding in a nearby garden.

Myftari, who had an Albanian interpreter to assist him during the sentencing hearing, injured two people in the collision but fortunately not seriously, the court was told.

He pleaded guilty to production of cannabis, dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

His barrister, Giles Bridge, conceded that Myftari was wanted by the police at the time of the crash.

Mr Bridge said officers were aware that he was living at an address in Romford, Essex, but he was not apprehended from there. No real efforts were made to locate or arrest him in the three years since he had been caught growing cannabis, it was alleged.

Myftari was aged 16 or 17 when he came to the United Kingdom and had since led “a precarious existence working on the fringes of society.”

Mr Bridge said he got in with people more criminally sophisticated and became involved with the cannabis offence.

These were his only convictions in the years since he had come to Britain and he accepted he would be deported by the Home Office.

Judge Colin Burn sentenced Myftari to six months’ imprisonment for production of cannabis and 14 months for dangerous driving, the sentences to run concurrently.

He told the defendant he was driving at speed to escape the police and showed little regard for anyone else’s safety.

The offence was aggravated by the fact that Myftari was a wanted man at the time.

Judge Burn banned him from driving in the United Kingdom for 19 months.

He would have to take an extended retest to renew his permit to drive in this country.

The judge also told Myftari he may be deported back to his homeland when he had served his sentence.