JAIL FOR BURGLARY TRIO WHO LEAPT INTO THE SEA
Bicycle wheels and beer bottles were thrown at officers from car, court told
THREE men have been jailed after throwing bike wheels stolen from a burglary at police during a car chase ending at a beach before bizarrely trying to flee by running into the sea.
Brothers Benjamin and Joshua Peace, and their pal Michael Antram, burst into a garage. They loaded two mountain bikes worth £900 and £2,700 into a car and damaged another worth £1,200.
Portsmouth Crown Court heard the Portsmouth and Havant trio, who have scores of past offences between them, took the bikes from a garage at a home in Funtington at around 4.30am on January 23.
They led officers on a chase to Hayling Island, throwing wheels and beer bottles from the moving car, and then stopped at a caravan park near the seafront.
At sentencing Benjamin, who has 41 convictions for 125 offences, appeared on videolink from jail where he is serving a sentence for arson and assault after attacking his brother Joshua and setting fire to a house after barricading him in.
Prosecutor Timothy Moores said: ‘All three men left the vehicle, (a police officer) found the driver who waded out into the sea and waited for him to come out of the water.
‘After a few minutes that male de-merged from the water and was subsequently identified as Ben Peace. Other police units came and a dog, and the other two were found wet and muddy.’
Then, the court heard how on May 15 both Joshua Peace and Antram were on the bridge over the A27 at Peronne Road in Hilsea when Antram chucked a beer bottle down into the carriageway hitting unsuspecting driver Binh Nguyen’s car and windscreen.
Mr Nguyen stopped on the hard shoulder and remonstrated with three men on the bridge – including Peace, who has 32 convictions for 71 offences, and Antram.
They launched into a vicious racist tirade, calling the Vietnamese heritage man ‘Chinese kung fu’ and telling him to go home.
Mr Nguyen returned to his car and drove home. Days later on July 1 he saw the defendants in Portsmouth city centre and filmed them on his phone, handing the recordings to police who identified them. DNA on the bottle was linked to Antram.
Michael Antram, 28, of no fixed address but known as a Portsmouth man, was jailed for four years by Recorder Charles Morrison. He admitted burglary causing a danger to road users, two charges of assault by beating, one of using threatening words or behaviour, one trespass on a railway, and two threats to kill.
Joshua Peace, 28, of Curdridge Close, Havant, was sentenced to two years and 10 months after admitting burglary.
Magistrates convicted Antram and Joshua Peace of racially-aggravated causing harassment, alarm or distress at a trial.
Benjamin Peace, 26, of HMP Erlestoke, but from Havant, was handed a three-year and two-month term after admitting burglary. It will run consecutive to a 58-month sentence for an assault on his brother Joshua and arson.