A MAN hooked on a banned “party drug” stole a lorry from a construction site and later rammed it into an unmarked police car.

Tristan Cole stole the 7.5ton lorry from a site in Basing View, Winchester Crown Court heard, but was subsequently spotted by officers driving it near Andover.

The 26-year-old drove it so dangerously, at times crossing the central reservation on the A343, that the police gave up the chase, the court was told.

The lorry was spotted later that day, on September 24 last year, at a petrol station on the A33 at Three Mile Cross, near Reading, by an officer who blocked the station exit with an unmarked police car.

Frank Abbott, prosecuting, said: “The defendant made several attempts to smash the lorry into the police car in a clear attempt to push it out of the way.

“There was a fuel pump and gas cylinders immediately behind the police vehicle, and the lorry came to a rest after overturning the crate of gas cylinders which caused him to stop.”

Cole, of Chopin Road, Brighton Hill, Basingstoke, was arrested but was so uncooperative that officers interviewed him in his custody cell using a body-worn camera.

The court heard the driving offence of aggravated dangerous driving was one of several Cole admitted to carrying out in the past two years, while not holding a licence.

They included driving dangerously in Brighton Hill on August 23, 2013, when he drove at police in a Citroen Saxo with a flat tyre.

On a separate occasion, on March 31 last year, Cole drove another car the wrong way around a roundabout, hitting a taxi driver, before running from the scene, the court heard.

Charles Cochand, defending, said Cole had been using the former legal high mephedrone, known as M-Cat, at the time of his offending, after a break-up with a former girlfriend.

He said Cole’s time in custody had helped him, and that he was remorseful and had the support of a new girlfriend.

However, Judge Keith Cutler branded Cole’s driving as “quite worrying”, and he jailed him for a total of 18 months, and banned him from driving for two years.