A hit-and-run driver who wrote off his victim's car was described repeatedly by his own solicitor as "stupid" after leaving his number plate at the scene.

College student Edison Lika, 24, injured a woman when he smashed into the car her husband was driving in Perth on May 14 last year.

Perth Sheriff Court was told the force of the impact was so great the registration plate from Lika's BMW flew off and was discovered on the road.

Fiscal depute Bill Kermode told the court: "He failed to stop at the Give Way signs and collided with their vehicle. The impact had such force it pushed the car into the opposing carriageway."

Mr Kermode said police officers saw the accused - wearing an orange football strip - driving with three friends in the car. When he spotted officers he drove off at speed.

Lika and his friends fled and were eventually discovered trying to hide in a garden.

He was arrested and found to have the car key.

Lika, from Speirshall Terrace in Yoker, Glasgow, admitted driving dangerously and at excessive speed and colliding with the car and causing injury.

He also admitted fleeing the scene and driving without insurance.

Solicitor Ryan Sloan, defending, said: "He is a young man who has made a series of stupid decisions. He is well aware of the stupidity of his conduct on the day in question.

"This incident constitutes a series of stupid decisions. The first was to drive a car he knew he was not insured to drive.

"He doesn't know Perth particularly well and should have been more mindful of the speed he was driving at. His friends egged him on to drive at speed and stupidly he has done so.

"When the collision occurred panic set in. He then made the stupidest decision of all and that was to make off."

Lika, a construction management student at City of Glasgow College, was banned from driving for 27 months and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

He was also placed under social work supervision for 12 months and on a curfew for 163 days.

Sheriff William Wood said: "This was an extraordinarily stupid sequence of events. This was clearly quite an appalling course of driving. You could have caused deaths. Treat this as a wake-up call."