A CARJACKER tried to outrun police at 120mph in a stolen car after pushing its female driver out of her seat at an M5 service station forecourt.

Samuel Owen got into the passenger seat of the VW Caravelle people carrier as the driver was about to pull out from the filling station on the M5 at Cullompton and demanded she drive off.

The woman, who lives in the Wellington area, told him to get out but he attacked her and forced her out of the driver’s door before climbing into her seat and roaring off at high speed. He was chased by police for 48 miles before police forced it into a crash barrier to stop it.

Owen was trying to get to his home in Cornwall and drove West on the A38 before going the wrong way round the roundabout at the entrance to the Tamar Bridge in Plymouth and doubling back on himself.

He reached speeds of 120mph before veering off the dual carriageway at the last minute at Ashburton when he saw a line of slow-moving rush hour traffic ahead. He was trying to rejoin the A38 heading back towards Cornwall when police stopped him.

She is a teacher at a primary school in Tiverton who lives in a village near Wellington and has had to change her route to work to avoid passing the service station because she cannot bear to go back there. 

She said: “I don’t think I will ever fully recover from what this man has done to me.” 

Recorder Mr Richard Paige said he was suspending Owen’s sentence because he was suffering from a psychotic episode at the time and was under the delusion his wife and five children in West Cornwall would be murdered.

He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after his arrest and doctors concluded he was in the grip of a paranoid episode at the time, possibly as a result of taking a so-called ‘happy pill’ which had been offered to him by another patient at a support group meeting.

Owen, 34, of Springfield Road, Goldsithney, Penzance, admitted aggravated vehicle taking, battery, and dangerous driving and was jailed for a year, suspended for two years, ordered to do 80 hours unpaid work and pay £110 compensation and banned from driving for 18 months.

Addressing the victim, he said: “You may think he should have been sent to prison but having seen all the evidence, I have decided this is the best way to impose a sentence. It does not belittle your suffering or what you are continuing to suffer.”

Mr Ed Bailey, prosecuting, said Owen forced the driver of the car out at Cullompton and then drove on the A38 at speeds of up to 120 mph in heavy rain while swerving to prevent police boxing him in. 

Mr Paul Dentith, defending, said psychiatric reports showed that Owen’s actions were the result of a paranoid and psychotic episode. He had threatened suicide the two nights earlier but been talked out of it by his wife.