Frederick George Tunnard, 38, appeared to be “trying to get the attention” of a nearby police officer by the way he was driving on the A64 near Rillington east of Malton, said Brooke Morrison.
She approached him and saw he had an open bottle of wine in his car. He grunted when asked questions.
But when more officers arrived, he drove off and disappeared from sight at the start of what the prosecution barrister said was a “prolonged and deliberate course of dangerous driving” .
Police mounted a search and found him parked up.
Tunnard mounted the kerb to get round a police car and again disappeared. Again they found him. This time he collided with a front gate, hit a parked car and drove off into a field with his car “extensively damaged”.
He also reversed towards a police car which had to manoeuvre out of the way and drove off but was finally caught.
A roadside breath test taken after he was arrested gave a reading of 125 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms. He claimed to police he had only drunk after parking his vehicle.
Tunnard, of Holmes Road, Kirton Holme, near Boston, Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, committed on March 22, 2024.
He had previous convictions for drink driving in 2022, when he was disqualified for 16 months, and being drunk in charge of a vehicle and assaulting an emergency worker in January 2025, York Crown Court heard.
Judge Simon Hickey said Tunnard had driven away from police “not once, but four times”.
However he would take the “exceptional course” of not sending him to jail because of the problems the farmer had including criminals twice starting fires on his land. Seven people in Tunnard’s farming business would lose their job if he was jailed, said the judge.
Tunnard was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months without conditions plus a 12-month driving ban and must take an extended driving test before driving alone again.
Kelly Clarke, for the farmer, said he had debts of £900,000 and the fires had had a “significant” impact on his financial state. He also had mental health issues.
He had turned to alcohol to help him cope with his problems.
“It was a terrible mistake for him to make on that day,” she said. “He tells me he has not had a drink since October 14 last year.”
