A MAN who forged documents and bank statements to avoid an offence of careless driving has been jailed for perverting the course of justice.

Mikael Khan was said to have been “brazen and repeated” in his attempts to avoid prosecution, which involved blaming the incident on a man who did not exist.

Sentencing him to 16 months imprisonment at Bradford Crown Court, Mr Recorder Paul Reid said Khan’s version of events “was all a catalogue of deceit, relatively sophisticated [and] certainly planned.

“It was a repeated attempt to mislead the police and pervert the course of justice, which took place over a sustained period.”

The court heard that Khan, 37, of Brookfield Avenue, Shipley, was caught on dashcam footage driving carelessly in a BMW in Leeds on June 26 last year.

The car was found to be insured to him and a notice of intended prosecution was served.

However Khan claimed to have sold the car before the incident and gave the name of a man in Leeds.

Police inquiries found no evidence of the £33,000 sale that Khan said had taken place, and a bank statement, proof of sale, and insurance documents submitted by him were found to be forgeries.

He also removed the car from his insurance policy.

Despite the evidence against him Khan said the police had jumped to the wrong conclusion and wanted to make a formal complaint.

A woman who had lived for ten years at the Leeds address said she had no knowledge of the man Khan claimed had bought his car.

He later told police that a friend, who he refused to identify, had brokered the sale of the car to the non-existent man.

Khan, who had previous convictions for assault and a firearms offence, for which he received a ten-year sentence, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and was handed a 16-month sentence by Recorder Reid.