At 33, Brandon McFall has an “appalling” criminal history and has spent a third of his life in custody.

Now the Invercargill man is returning to prison after stealing a trailer, fleeing police and causing the car he was in to flip while his co-defendant’s 10-month-old baby was in the back seat.

He was high on meth at the time of the crash in December 2025.

Judge Mark Williams told McFall in the Invercargill District Court it was “perhaps a matter of pure luck” that no one was injured.

Judge Williams sent McFall to prison for 30 months on charges of burglary, driving while disqualified, failing to remain stopped, dangerous driving and driving with a qualifying drug in his blood on the evening of December 2, 2025.

About 4pm that day, McFall and a co-defendant were in a vehicle in Invercargill and entered a locked back section to steal a flat-deck trailer.

The co-defendant’s 10-month-old child was in a capsule in the back seat.

The trailer’s licence plate was removed and replaced with one from a Ford Falcon that had been loaded on to the trailer after the burglary.

While at a BP, McFall saw police enter the forecourt and yelled to the co-defendant, who ran back to the vehicle.

The pair left the petrol station and police later saw the vehicle in a hotel carpark.

McFall was now in the passenger seat.

Police activated red and blue flashing lights, stopped and approached the car’s passenger side and advised McFall he was under arrest.

He asked what he was under arrest for and locked the car doors, reached across, grabbed the steering wheel and put the vehicle in gear.

He then yelled at the co-defendant to drive.

Police pursued the vehicle with flashing red and blue lights and the siren activated.

For more than 50 minutes, the co-defendant drove around western Southland, evading police.

Police suspended their pursuit when the driving became dangerous.

The co-defendant stopped the vehicle on Mill Rd North near Invercargill after a tyre on the trailer blew. The defendants uncoupled the trailer and left it on the road before continuing their journey.

About 6pm, police set up road spikes on State Highway 6, an arterial route between Invercargill and Queenstown, to intercept the pair.

McFall reached over from the passenger’s side and grabbed the steering wheel, causing the car to veer on to the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic.

The wheels dug into loose gravel on the shoulder of the road and the pair lost control of the vehicle, fishtailing across the road before hitting a water table and flipping the vehicle.

McFall has been in custody since the offending.

A test of the defendant’s blood returned a result of 560ng/ml of methamphetamine. The high-risk level for methamphetamine is 50ng/ml.

That was 11 times over the high-risk limit, Judge Williams said.

Judge Williams said McFall had an “appalling” history of offending with 31 sentencing dates over 16 years.

His last conviction was for burglary in September 2025 and he had offended every year in the past 16 years apart from 2014 and 2015, when he was in custody.

“You have just under 40 convictions for driving whilst forbidden, disqualified or suspended.

“Given the nature of your driving, given the history of driving whilst disqualified and given the high level of meth in your blood at the time, in my view Mr McFall, you are right at the very top of the maximum penalty for driving while disqualified.”

McFall’s lawyer Keiran Tohill argued his client’s offending was because he had struggled with addiction and literacy over the years and had only his grandfather to support him.

Tohill argued the sentence could be lowered because of this, but Judge Williams did not agree.

From a starting point of 30 months’ imprisonment, Judge Williams deducted 15%, or five months, for McFall’s guilty plea but uplifted it by five months for his previous offending.

As well as 30 months in prison, McFall was disqualified from driving for three years.

The co-defendant is yet to be sentenced.