A prolific thief has been jailed after he fled from a rural farm shop in his Vauxhall Corsa – with a staff member on the bonnet.





Alan Lewis, 58, can be seen on "chilling" CCTV footage driving more than 200 metres as the brave worker tried to stop him escaping from"

Mainsgill Farm in Richmond, North Yorks.

A court heard the employee had recognised Lewis from a shoplifting incident two weeks earlier when he bagged nearly £900 of goods.

When he returned to the shop on November 23 last year, staff members confronted him and have chase.

Prosecutor Brooke Morrison told York Crown Court: "As Lewis pulled up to the exit of the car park, [the staff member] managed to pull one side of the gates closed and blocked (the other side) with his body."

He shouted at Lewis to stop as the thief "shouted at him to get out of the way" and then drove the Corsa "slowly" towards him "to the point where he was lifted onto the defendant's bonnet". "

Lewis, who had a passenger in the car, then drove along the entire 200-metre-long driveway with the staff member's "torso on the car bonnet, his legs and feet scraping the road". "

The victim was still clinging onto the bonnet as Lewis drove onto the A66 and stopped to check for oncoming traffic, which gave the victim the chance to jump off the car as Lewis drove off.

Lewis was arrested shortly after when his registration plate was picked up by cameras, the court heard.

He told officers he had given all the stolen items away and initially denied dangerous driving, claiming that the staff member had "leapt up onto his car". "

Lewis, of Goole, East Yorks., was charged with six offences including dangerous driving, shop theft and driving while disqualified and without insurance.

He admitted all the charges and was jailed for 18 months and banned from driving for two years on Friday.

Ms Morrison said that Lewis had first driven to the farm shop on November 9 when he parked up outside the store intent on a shoplifting splurge.

In four separate forays into and out of the shop between 1pm and 1.40pm, he stole goods worth £897.50, put them in his trolley and loaded them into his vehicle, before driving away.



Ms Morrison said Lewis had a criminal record of 33 previous convictions for 89 offences including shoplifting, fraud, dangerous driving, careless driving and criminal damage.

His rap sheet, which dated back to the early 1980s, included a "remarkable" 25 previous drive-while-disqualified offences between 2004 and 2021, the court heard."

During that same period, he had been booked for driving without insurance a staggering 24 times.





His last conviction for dangerous driving, driving while disqualified and having no insurance led to a 58-week prison sentence and a three-and-a-half-year motoring ban.



Recorder Peter Makepeace KC said Lewis's record for driving while disqualified alone was "as bad a record as I've ever seen in 35 years of doing this job". "

He said: "How you have not killed somebody is beyond me."

"You clearly intend to continue driving, no matter how many times this court disqualifies you."

"I have no doubt that the people running the shop are incredibly hard-working entrepreneurs. They contribute massively to the community; everything they do is a force for good, and what you do is pillage them, you prey upon them." "

He said the shop worker who tried to stop Lewis driving away had shown immense bravery which was "in stark contrast to you". "

He described CCTV footage of the incident as "chilling", adding: "The slightest misfortune and he would have gone underneath your car and he would have been dead and you would have been prosecuted for homicide. "

"Maybe you will learn a lesson (from this), but I doubt it very much."