A TEENAGER who stole and wrote off a £100,000 ambulance was jailed for three years today.

Public menace Steven McGladdery, 19, wandered into a house where the crew were treating a casualty and stole the keys from a paramedic's pocket.

He then led police on a 60mph pursuit through a Middlesbrough housing estate on February 8 before crashing the Mercedes Benz ambulance into a wall and a car.

McGladdery, who was on his third Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) for stealing a car and ramming a police car, was found hiding by a police dog.

McGladdery, of Moorbeck Way, Ormesby, was sentenced to three years in a young offender's institution, disqualified for four years, and given a fresh ASBO for three years on his release.

He pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to aggravated vehicle taking, driving while disqualified, no insurance and breach of an ASBO.

* Read the full story in The Northern Echo tomorrow