A Prince George man with a history of leading police on wild chases while behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle has been sentenced to nearly two more years in jail.
Paul Daniel Shaw, 29, who has been in custody since his arrest on Oct. 2, was sentenced to a further 669 days behind bars in Prince George provincial court on Wednesday for counts of dangerous driving, possession of stolen property and possession for the purpose of trafficking.
He was also sentenced to a concurrent term of 18 months for assaulting a peace officer.
RCMP needed a spike belt, a police dog and a team of police to box him in after he attempted to flee police in a stolen 2006 Ford F-350 pickup truck on the day of his arrest.
It began when an RCMP member recognized Shaw, who had been issued a three-year driving prohibition for a December 2011 conflict with police, as he was driving along River Road.
Knowing Shaw's reputation, police deployed a spike belt near the Cameron Street Bridge to intercept him, but he drove over it and continued for nearly two more kilometres and then rammed a police vehicle on North Nechako Road.
Police were then able to surround the truck and bring it to a halt but, despite warnings from RCMP, he attempted to flee out the passenger side. However, he was quickly apprehended by a police dog and taken to hospital with minor bite wounds.
Significant quantities of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine were found on Shaw, police said at the time of the incident.
In December 2012, Shaw was sentenced to 11 months in jail for an incident 12 months before. In that case an RCMP member responded to a call about a man sleeping in a running vehicle in the parking lot of a 900-block Abhau Street apartment building.
The member woke Shaw to see if he was alright, who then put the vehicle in gear and rammed five vehicles and two police cars before escaping. He was arrested later that day.
In September 2010, Shaw was sentenced to 30 days in jail for one count of possession of a break-in instrument and two counts of breach of an undertaking or recognizance following a March 2010 incident in which three police cars were rammed with a stolen truck.
Shaw had originally been charged with theft over $5,000, failure to stop at the scene of an accident, possession of stolen property over $5,000, flight from a peace officer and dangerous driving.
But he had been arrested while on foot about four hours after the vehicle had been abandoned and could not be linked to the event beyond reasonable doubt, so those charges were stayed.
