A SKIPTON man who admitted a string of offences, including taking a family friend's car for a joy ride and puncturing the tyre, riding around town on an unregistered electric motorbike with a passenger and failing to stop for a police officer, has been given unpaid work and a driving ban.

Kai Bailey, now 21, admitted six charges before Skipton magistrates. Five related to the motorbike offences on June 17 this year at Greatwood Avenue. They were failing to stop, using a motor vehicle without insurance, driving without a licence, riding a motor cycle without a helmet and riding a vehicle without a rear registration plate.

The sixth charge was for aggravated vehicle taking and damage under £5,000.

Magisrates were told for the June 17 incidents, Bailey, of Jenny Gill Crescent, was seen by police on an electric motorbike without a helmet and carrying a passenger. He failed to stop when indicated and continued down the side of a school. He was later arrested.

Five days later he was at the house of a family friend in Jenny Gill Crescent who had a Citroen Berlingo. Her granddaughters were at the house and one of them had given Bailey a lift into town. The other had mistakenly picked up the keys to the Citroen, which contained her grandmother's house keys, and asked Bailey if they were his. He said yes and took them.

Later he took the car for a joy ride but 'popped' the tyre and rang the car owner's daughter to say where it was. She rang the police. The following day he put the keys through the woman's letterbox and phoned her to apologise. She had been concerned because her house keys were on the key ring but he told her he was not a threat.

Magistrates were told he was not on a community order at the time, but had been handed one since after appearing in court in the interim for other matters.

Mitigating, Keith Blackwell said it was 'foolsh and infantile behaviour' from Bailey who was wracked with remorse.

For aggravated vehicle taking, magistrates ordered the old order of 20 RAR days and 100 hours of unpaid work (with an almost completed alcohol abstention programme) be replaced with a new 12 month community order of 20 RAR days and 200 hours of unpaid work

He was fined £150 for riding the electric bike without insurnace with no separate penalties for the remaining offences. He must pay a £114 surcharge and £85 costs and is disqualified from driving for 12 months.