Crash youth left friend paralysed.

A TEENAGER who left a friend paralysed for life when he crashed a stolen Range Rover has been sent to a young offenders institution for 15 months.

Judge Michael Challinor also banned 18-year-old Anthony Dibble from driving for seven years and told him, "Everyone has come out of this case a loser - it is a complete shipwreck."

Dibble took a Peugeot car from Aldridge Tyres where he worked before returning the vehicle and stealing a Range Rover which he then crashed into a Vauxhall van as he drove at speed in a 30mph limit.

Kanwal Juss, prosecuting, said Dibble was thrown through the sunroof. His 19-year-old friend Ian Stitch, who was not wearing a seatbelt in the back of the vehicle, suffered spinal injuries.

Mr Stitch had been in the Midland Centre for Spinal Injuries since the accident on June 29 and he would need nursing costing pounds 3,000 a week Mrs Juss told Wolverhampton Crown Court Peter Evans, a second passenger, was wearing a seatbelt and escaped with cuts and bruising.

Dibble, of Salters Road, Walsall Wood, admitted taking the Peugeot without consent, driving without insurance and aggravated taking of the Range Rover.