A teenage cancer patient has admitted causing £10,000 of damage to an ambulance that he took on a joyride at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

Luke Bradford, 19, smashed into cars and street furniture around Sutton as he drove at 40mph.

Police were forced to give up the pursuit for safety reasons before Bradford eventually crashed into a lamppost in Banstead Road South, Carshalton.

The teenager, of Hove, West Sussex, admitted aggravated vehicle taking at Lewes Crown Court last week.

Sentencing has been adjourned until December 8 while reports are prepared.

Bradford slipped out of Royal Marsden to carry out the theft just a few weeks after his 18th birthday in September last year.

The court was told that he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 16 and was being treated at the centre in Downs Road, Belmont at the time.

John Marsden-Lynch, for the defence, said: “He had undergone some very intensive chemotherapy and had taken a sleeping tablet and drank two cans of beer.”

The judge granted him bail on condition that he lives with his father in Hove. He was also banned from entering Queensway, Brighton.