A drunk car thief who crashed into a motorway barrier at 100mph and reversed down a dual carriageway has been jailed.

Sonny Manville slammed the stolen Fiat into a car park wall, reversed down an A-road, then two days later spun into the M2’s central reservation, narrowly missing a motorist.

Police found the 20-year-old hiding after fleeing the wreckage on the motorway between Junction 2 at Strood and 3 for Chatham and Maidstone shortly after midnight in July last year.

Manville pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking after officers discovered his fingerprints – and letters addressed to him – inside the Punto remnants.

The court heard he was recorded on CCTV trying vehicles’ doors and then drove off into Westwood Cross Shopping Centre in Broadstairs.

He crashed into a wall in the car park at speed and made-off towards the Esso garage on the A256 Ramsgate Road, where he was filmed reversing down the adjoining carriageway.

At midnight, two days later, Manville overtook a motorist at about 100mph and lost control of the car.

“It clipped the central reservation, spun and crashed into the central reservation,” prosecutor John Upton said.

Manville was arrested an hour later and found to be over the drink-drive limit.

Days before, the thief burgled a disabled pensioner’s home in Broadstairs, making off with a leg of lamb, frozen chicken, cans of lager and a handheld vacuum cleaner.

He denied the crime but later admitted burglary after his fingerprints were again discovered at the crime scene.

A judge at Canterbury Crown Court locked him up for 30 months, to be served in a Young Offenders’ Institute. July 13

'Although you have undoubtedly had a traumatic upbringing, these offences are too serious to attract anything other than an immediate period of imprisonment...'

Mitigating, Danny Moore said Manville pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and was "still very young".

Manville had had a troubled upbringing and suffered mental health and behavioural issues, he added.

Judge Simon James told Manville: “You took a stranger’s car and for two to three days used it, as so, to endanger other road users.

“In addition to the aggravated vehicle taking you also fall to be sentenced for a night-time dwelling burglary where it seems to me you targeted a vulnerable gentleman.

“Although you have undoubtedly had a traumatic upbringing, these offences are too serious to attract anything other than an immediate period of imprisonment.”

His crime spree started shortly after he was charged and convicted of assaulting two police officers.

Manville, previously of Top Dartford Road, Swanley, spat at one while claiming he was infected with Covid and kicked another in Bull Lane, Newington, at the beginning of the pandemic.

He was sentenced to 101 days in a Young Offenders’ Institute for the assaults.

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