Serial joyrider hits two PCs and sparks 90mph chase

Jamie Miller knocked down two police officers and raced across country at 90mph after stealing his grandmother's car during a family birthday party.

Miller - described as a menace to society by a sheriff - has destroyed numerous cars during the past four years, including six in one evening.

At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, he admitted driving off at speed while two police officers tried to hold on to the stolen car, knocking them both to the ground. He was then pursued across Fife by several police cars until he eventually crashed into the gas station, causing a leak which sparked a security alert.

Miller, 20, from Balado, near Kinross, was remanded in custody after he admitted committing a series of crimes a month after being freed on bail.

He admitted stealing his grandmother's car during the early hours of 30 May and driving it while he was disqualified and with no insurance; driving dangerously and at excessive speed in various parts of Fife during heavy rain, and ignoring a no entry sign and driving off when Fife PCs Carley Marshall and Callum Forbes tried to stop him. He ultimately lost control and smashed through a fence, a wall and into a gas supply pipe at Loch Leven Mills, Kinross.

The car rolled on to its roof and Miller admitted causing a gas leak which posed a danger of an explosion to the public. Sentence was deferred for reports.

The incident on 30 May was the third time Miller - who is said to be obsessed with driving - has led police on a high speed chase which has ended in a smash.

In February 2009, he was convicted of "driving like a labrador", with his head out of the side window of a stolen car, because he could not see through a frosted windscreen. He drove like that at high speed for several miles on the wrong side of the road until he finally lost control and smashed into a wall and a bus stop.

Miller, who has committed more than 40 crimes since June 2006, admitted driving dangerously - he was already banned at the time.

In April 2007, Miller was banned from driving for three years and locked up for 14 and a half months for leading police on a 100-mile chase across Scotland.

He drove two stolen cars at up to 100mph from Kinross to the Borders. Miller drove on three wheels, went the wrong way round a roundabout and smashed a bridge parapet before trying to escape on foot.

That incident came just days after Miller had broken into the premises of the Scottish Motor Auction Group in Kinross and turned it into a "race track". In one evening, he wrote off six cars and damaged several more. He also caused 15,000 more damage by ramming through the locked gates of the compound.

Solicitor John McLaughlin, defending, said Miller "saw this as some way of injecting some excitement into his life".