A MOTORIST who used his car as a 'weapon' by driving at a man on a York street has been jailed for three years.

A judge told Adam Lee yesterday that his offences were 'truly shocking' and Luke Jackson could have been killed, had he not been a fit, young person able to jump on the vehicle to avoid being 'mown down'.

The Recorder of York, Judge Paul Batty QC, said Mr Jackson had suffered a broken wrist during the incident in Danesfort Avenue, Acomb.

Speaking after a jury took less than an hour to find Lee guilty of four offences - dangerous driving, carrying an offensive weapon, affray and assault causing grievous bodily harm - the judge said the crimes had been observed by two independent members of the public and Lee's defence had been risible.

Lee, 26, of Burnsall Drive, York, had told the jury on Tuesday that his car had been stationary when Mr Jackson had jumped on it and smashed the windscreen by kicking it.

Mr Jackson said Lee had driven his car towards him 'like a maniac' and knocked him on to the bonnet, and then drove off with him clinging to the vehicle until he eventually threw himself off and slid across the pavement, suffering grazing and the injured wrist.

The judge, who disqualified Lee from driving for three years as well as imposing a total jail sentence of three years, said he was 'starting to accumulate an unpleasant record.' While on bail over the driving offences, Lee had berated people on a ghost walk.

The court heard Lee had shouted at the ghost tour group in Shambles that it was 'rubbish', and then when two men had tried to get him to leave, he had squared up and thrown punches at them.

Lee was given a community order for a public order offence by magistrates after that incident, and Judge Batty said yesterday he was fortunate not to have been charged with affray.

York Crown Court was told earlier this week that the car incident happened in April last year at the home of Mr Jackson's girlfriend, Paige Collis, who had previously been in a relationship with Lee's cousin Richard Lorains.

Lee was with Mr Lorains when he went gone round to her house and banged on the door to ask for cans of drink which he had previously left there. She handed the drink to him through the window and he then threw a can of it at her. Mr Jackson went outside to speak to him and seek an apology, and there was a verbal altercation, during which Lee pulled out a baton or bar, and then later drove the car at Mr Jackson.