Cheshunt railway tracks Land Rover driver jailed for 10 years

A drug dealer who drove a car along a railway track while fleeing police has been jailed for 10 years.

Kieron Francis, 36, drove the Land Rover Discovery through a level crossing and on to tracks at Cheshunt railway station in Hertfordshire on 15 July 2021.

The car had been stolen from Braintree, Essex, on 11 June.

Francis was found not guilty of stealing the car, but convicted of two charges of endangering life.

He had previously pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, two offences of criminal damage, unlawfully driving on the railway tracks, assaulting an emergency worker and abandoning the Discovery. He also admitted having no insurance.

Francis had also pleaded guilty to supplying crack and heroin in Braintree between January and July 2021. He was running a drug line in the town.

Kieron Francis's lawyer said his client "suffers anxiety and depression" and claimed he would not have behaved that way were he not on medication

Francis, previously of Henniker Road in Ipswich, Suffolk, but now of Fossway in Dagenham in east London, was driving the car when officers tried to stop the vehicle in Windmill Lane in Cheshunt.

He tussled with one officer who tried to stop him driving off. He reversed, causing the officer to roll away, and crashed into other cars, before driving off towards the town's railway station.

At the rail crossing, he smashed through a closed barrier and turned south down the track, passing waiting passengers.

A train that was coming down the line had to be stopped.

Several police vehicles were sent to the level crossing next to Cheshunt railway station on the day of the incident

An eyewitness said he was left "gobsmacked" by what he saw.

"It was like a scene from Grand Theft Auto, the video game," he said.

The court heard 66 trains were cancelled, there were 488 minutes of train delays and costs of £47,700 to Network Rail.

Defending at St Albans Crown Court, his counsel Chantel Gaber said: "He has mental health and learning difficulties. He suffers anxiety and depression and is in constant pain after an accident."

She said Francis said he would not have behaved in the way he did were it not for medication he was taking.

Recorder Eason Rajah KC told Francis: "You deliberately drove through closed crossing barriers. You knew when you did so you were endangering the lives of countless people.

"It is just luck nobody was seriously injured or killed that day. It is only the speed with which the railway was shut down that prevented a serious accident."