A BANNED driver who led police on a chase through a town centre has been warned he is facing jail.

James Anthony Peacock, 19, was convicted after a trial of dangerous driving and driving while disqualified.

The jury at Teesside Crown Court took an hour to find Peacock guilty of both charges yesterday.

Peacock, of Brighton Road, Darlington, had claimed a friend was driving the Ford Mondeo when police tried to stop it in the town on January 3 this year.

The car was driven at speed and the wrong way around a roundabout as Peacock - said to be afraid of being caught because he was already banned from the roads - tried to escape.

Police followed the vehicle from Coleridge Gardens to Parkside, Park Lane, Smithfield Road, Neasham Road and Tunstall Terrace before it was dumped and the occupants fled.

Steel erector Peacock, who was said to have a bad criminal record, was caught soon afterwards and claimed the car was being driven by a friend he had sold it to a few days earlier.

The judge, Mr Recorder Tim Hirst, adjourned the case so a pre-sentence report can be prepared by probation officials.

But he warned Peacock: "You don't want to be under any misapprehension because, bearing in mind your antecedents, a custodial sentence is very likely in this case."