A FORMER championship footballer has been let off with a fine and penalty points after leading police on a risky chase through Swindon

Chris Zebroski appeared in Swindon Magistrates Court to face trial for a dangerous driving charge.

The Swindon-born 31-year-old from Malmesbury plays professionally for Eastleigh FC and used to play for Swindon Town’s youth team.

At around 4.50am on June 20, Wiltshire Police received a call about a vehicle being driven along Queens Drive which was doing loops of the area.

A police sergeant driving behind Zebroski’s Mitsubishi Colt on Salisbury Street switched on the blue lights and siren to get the soccer star to pull over.

Instead, he set off and drove along Broad Street, Ponting Street and Manchester Road above the speed limit.

Pauline Lambert, prosecuting, said: “He failed to stop and drove in a manner that was dangerous, erratic, and which fell well below the standard the officer would expect of a driver, going in excess of 20mph.

“Another officer spotted two men walking along Fleming Way and one of them, Mr Zebroski, ran away.

“The officer chased after him and, after catching up, smelt alcohol on his breath.

“He blew below the alcohol limit on a breath test and was taken into custody.

“Mr Zebroski’s car was found parked at the railway car park.

“In interview, he said that he didn’t stop because he saw the police, got scared and felt intimidated, though in hindsight he shouldn’t have run away.

“There are previous driving matters on his record and a more serious, but unrelated, matter from 2015.”

This more serious matter was the assault and attempted robbery of two men in Swindon in February 2015, which he carried out while awaiting sentencing for a December 2014 road rage incident.

After admitting four charges of robbery, attempted robbery and assault at Swindon Crown Court, he was jailed for four years and four months.

Stuart Harris, defending, said: “The word ‘dangerous’ has been used when describing his driving but the charge is for ‘careless’ driving, which is a more suitable description.

“Mr Zebroski did not see the police car’s lights.

“The speed is described as being in excess of only 20mph and if it was more than that then surely that would have been mentioned by the officer.

“There was no collision and no damage.

“He accepted that he ran away from police and said he panicked because there were five police cars at the scene and said he has been treated unfairly by the police in the past.”

Zebroski was fined £230 for driving without due care and attention and must pay £85 in costs and £30 to victim services.

He was also given four penalty points on his licence.