A FORMER drugs baron who wrote off a £25,000 hire car after pinching the keys from a friend’s house has been spared an immediate jail term.

Darren Mensah, 37, jailed for 11 years in 2005 for drugs offences, drove away in the VW Golf despite being high on cannabis and banned from the road.

But Mensah escaped prosecution for driving while disqualified and under the influence of drugs as he lied about being behind the wheel.

Now a judge has said she is prepared to ‘take a chance’ on him after hearing he has turned his life around.

In addition to a suspended sentence Recorder Maria Lamb told him to pay £150 compensation for wrecking the brand new car.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that Mensah was staying at the home of friend Hayley Jackson on October 15 last year.

When she got up the following day she saw the keys were missing and the car, hired from Avis, was not outside her home in Farmer Crescent, Groundwell.

At about 6pm the car was seen travelling east on the M4 in Berkshire, where the vehicle lurched across the road and into trees.

Mensah, who it was clear had been smoking cannabis, insisted someone else was driving the car, even though there was no-one else at the scene of the crash.

However his blood was found on the driver’s air bag and cameras along the motorway showed only one person in the car.

Mr Meeke said a protracted enquiry meant it was not possible to prosecute Mensah because a six-month time limit for charging him for driving while disqualified and under the influence had passed.

Mensah, now of Wallington, south London, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking.

He was living in Royal Wootton Bassett 10 years ago when he was running an operation to supply heroin, cocaine and cannabis across Swindon.

At the time Mensah enjoyed a life of fast cars and designer clothes as he made more than £80,000 from the trade in hard drugs.

Since his release from prison he had been convicted of driving while disqualified in 2010, without a licence last year and also for possessing cannabis in July this year.

Rob Ross, defending, said his client had made great strides to improve his life in the year since the incident.

He said he was working with a charity doing voluntary work trying to stop other young people going wrong and hoped to soon have a job through this.

The accident had been a ‘life-changing exercise’ and made him realise he could not continue as he had.

Imposing an eight-month jail term, the judge said: “I am prepared to take a chance with you and suspend it for two years.

“It seems, and I hope it is genuine, that you have turned over a new leaf, that you are going to be a positive role model. Woe betide you if you ever come back before this court again.”

She said he must also do 200 hours’ unpaid community work and pay £150 compensation and a £100 victim surcharge.