A driver who took a teenage girl on a high-speed police chase that ended in a crash could face jail.

Officers on patrol in Chaucer Gardens, Sutton, spotted Croydon man Rhys Cleary with a 16-year-old girl behaving suspiciously behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Zafira on Wednesday, March 26.

One of the officers approached the car to speak to Cleary but he sped away and turned right into Collingwood Road.

The officers gave chase in a marked car and followed the 25-year-old to Oldfields Road where he reached speeds of up to 90mph on the wrong side of the dual carriageway.

He ran through three sets of red traffic lights - past the spot where a speeding driver ran down and fatally injured traffic PC Andrew Duncan while he was on duty last year.

The route of the chase. Click on the letters for information

He proceeded to drive the wrong way around the Rosehill roundabout and only stopped when he crashed into a set of traffic lights in Bishopsford Road towards Mitcham.

Cleary still refused to give himself up to the police.

Unhurt in the crash, he fled the car on foot but police tracked him down to a garden in Pershore Grove and arrested him.

The teenage girl was also unhurt in the crash.

Cleary, of Coldharbour Lane, admitted dangerous driving, failing to stop when required by police, failing to stop after an accident, having no insurance and driving not in accordance with a licence in front of Croydon magistrates on Thursday, March 27.

He faces sentence at Croydon Crown Court on May 1.