TAKING his ex-partner’s car after spending the night with her a man ended up crashing into a bollard and road sign on Cricklade Road and had to be cut free from the car by firefighters.

But the Renault Clio had been declared SORN, and the man didn’t have a licence which saw him brought before the court. On Wednesday afternoon 24-year-old Mitchell Hicks pleaded guilty to breaching a restraining order preventing him from having contact with his ex-partner, aggravated vehicle taking, driving without a licence and having no insurance when he came before magistrates sitting in Swindon.

The court heard that the Cunningham Road resident had been cut out of the Renault Clio by firefighters on March 19 shortly after 9am after he had collided with a bollard and a sign on Cricklade Road after he had swerved to avoid another car.

Nick Barr on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, told the magistrates: “As a result of that the driver was cut out and was complaining of neck pans so was taken by ambulance to the hospital.”

The police then carried out checks on the vehicle and went to visit its owner – Hicks’ ex-partner, who he was banned from seeing due to a restraining order which came to an end on April 25. She told the police she had not given her permission for him to drive the car, and it was actually declared as off the road with the DVLA, and he did not have a driving licence.

Defending Hicks, Sambreen Arif told the court that the couple had been in an on-off relationship for the last five or six years. “It would appear that despite the restraining order being in place at her request, after a period of time of abiding by the restraining order she invites him to assist her in looking after their son while she is working.

“He accepts that on that day in the early hours of the morning he gets up and he saw the Renault on the driveway, he doesn’t really know exactly why he did it, but he just took the keys and you have heard the consequences of that.

“He was driving down Cricklade Road and he felt he was being tailgated by an Audi A3 – he sped up to create some distance then he swerved to avoid a collision with a car pulling out of a side road and collided with the bollard."

The magistrates told him they had been considering a custodial sentence for the offence, but instead imposed a community order for two years, during which he must comply with the probation service. He will also be curfewed for three months between the hours of 9pm and 6am.

He was also banned form having a driving licence for a year, which was backdated to his first court appearance when an interim disqualification was imposed on him. He must pay Crown Prosecution Service costs of £85 and a £60 victim surcharge.

In addition to this, the magistrates imposed a new, 12 month restraining order preventing him from having contact with the owner of the car.