A man reported imaginary incidents to emergency services, abused the call-takers and rammed into a police car three times, a court has heard.
Jason Samuel Gideon, 48, appeared in the Invercargill District Court on Thursday on a raft of driving and dishonesty charges.
Judge Russell Walker sentenced him to 18 months’ jail.
An ambulance arrived within minutes to discover nobody was experiencing any medical emergency.
Minutes later, he told emergency services a fight had broken out, then phoned again and said it was at Z Gladstone.
Over the next half hour, Gideon continued to report false emergencies and abuse the call-takers.
Police tracked the caller’s location and followed him on State Highway 98.
He later pulled over and the officer stopped behind.
The defendant noticed the car, did a U-turn and yelled at the officer who followed him, reversing into the patrol vehicle before driving off.
Later Gideon stopped again and collided with the police car in the same way.
The officer drove away from the defendant, but noticed he was following them and pulled into a driveway.
Gideon hit the car a third time, colliding with the front bumper.
The court heard more than $10,000 worth of damage was caused to the police car.
Eventually, Gideon was stopped by road spikes and fled into a forest on foot.
He was arrested a short time later.
While being taken to the Invercargill police station, the defendant claimed he did not realise he had rammed a police car.
He said he was scared as the vehicle had been following him for some time.
The court heard Gideon had now had 10 convictions for disqualified driving.
Judge Walker disqualified him for 18 months and ordered him to pay $125 reparation in relation to petrol drive-offs.
