A LOVE-stricken young man took his mother’s car on a three-mile drive in an effort to patch up his broken romance, a court was told.

But Ashley Millard had been drinking and he crashed into a speeding sign near a roundabout, the Mini Cooper was damaged and he was breathalysed.

Millard, aged 20, of Melbourne Street, Barbourne, Worcester, was given a 12-month community order by Worcester Crown Court and ordered to do 150 hours unpaid work. He was disqualified from driving for 12 months.

He admitted aggravated vehicle taking, driving without insurance or a licence and with excess alcohol.

Millard had been drinking with his girlfriend at the Oak Apple pub in Spetchley Road, Worcester, but they had an argument, said Charles Hardy, prosecuting.

He took a taxi home but was so upset that he decided to take the car in an effort to see the girl. It was on the way back to the pub that he crashed in Swinesherd Way and failed a roadside breath test.

Judith Kenney, defending, said Millard held a provisional licence and was having lessons from his girlfriend. Neither of them had intended to drive that night.

But the argument with his girlfriend had left him devastated, especially when he learned she was seeing someone else. Having gone home, he had no money for another taxi so he took his mother’s car off the driveway.

Miss Kenney said Millard was in full-time work with a construction company and had managed to carry out a previous order for unpaid work despite being on a tag and under curfew.

A lack of maturity had clouded his judgement, she said.

Judge Christopher Plunkett said Millard had behaved like “an idiot” in taking the car and driving it whilst drunk. If he had killed someone, he could have gone to jail for seven years.

Millard had also put his mother in an impossible situation where she was obliged to shop him to the police. “If you behave like this again you will be going to prison for a very long time,” he said.