WINDOW cleaner Mark Ward, who led police on a seven-mile drive along one of North Yorkshire's most notorious stretches of road, ignored efforts to persuade him to pull over, a court heard yesterday.

Magistrates were told how Ward, 41, swerved from side to side as he drove his Volvo up Beamsley Hill from Bolton Abbey on the A59 Harrogate-Skipton road in the early hours of the morning, taking up both Harrogate-bound lanes.

When he reached narrow, winding Kex Gill, he continued to travel at 50mph, veering so sharply at times that police believed he would smash into the crash barrier erected to prevent vehicles plunging down a ravine.

Sarah Tyrer, prosecuting, said at one point police got their patrol car in front of the Volvo and slowed down to 15mph in a bid to get Ward, of Cheltenham Mount, Harrogate, to pull over.

But he continued on his way, ignoring wailing sirens and flashing blue lights.

He only stopped when police set up a road block at a spot known locally as Dangerous Crossroads, near the Menwith Hill base, Harrogate magistrates were told.

Ward pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, drink-driving and failing to stop for police, and he also admitted causing £200 damage to a telephone in a Harrogate pub three weeks later.

Geoffrey Rogers, mitigating, said no particularly excessive speed had been involved in the pursuit and there had been no accident.

Court chairman Mary Colquhoun called for probation reports to be prepared.

She bailed him until May 16 and banned him from driving in the meantime. He was also told to stay out of pubs in the centre of Harrogate.