A MOTORIST whose car was ploughed into by a drink-driver was dragged along the road after he got out to speak to the other man.

Robert Bowe was described as a menace by a judge as he was jailed for 21 months and banned from the roads for five years.

Judge Sean Morris told the 41-year-old: "It has had a terrible effect on the victim. Luckily he had not lost any limbs, and luckily he is not dead."

Bowe - who had no licence and no insurance for his Ford Focus - crashed into the back of the other vehicle on Beckfields Avenue, Ingleby Barwick, near Stockton, on December 18.

The man got out and approached Bowe, but when he leaned through the window, the banned driver took off, said prosecutor David Crook.

Mr Crook said the victim needed two months off work, suffered a suspected fractured elbow, was unable to play with his son over Christmas, and is now nervous in a car.

A court heard how Bowe has a 15-year history of driving while disqualified, with excess alcohol and without insurance.

He was due to go on trial at Teesside Crown Court on charges of dangerous driving and failing to provide a specimen but pleaded guilty at the 11th hour.

Judge Morris told him: "Court time was set aside while people who have been raped and abused have to wait - all because you did not have the guts to own up to what you did.

"You are a menace on the roads. You got yourself so legless you couldn't even remember whether you dragged somebody along a road or not.

"You were seen staggering into your car. You rammed into that back of someone else. They got out and you ran them over. He could have been killed or dragged under your car and been paraplegic.

"You didn't have the guts to own up. You played the system, now the system is going to play with you."

Graham Silvester, mitigating, said Bowe, of Croft Road, Eaglescliffe, "foolishly" drove when he was unfit to, after his partner rang him at a pub to say she needed his help with her terminally-ill son.

"The reason he didn't accept dangerous driving earlier, was he had no recollection of the injuries being caused to the complainant and how it was occasioned.

Bowe admitted the charge, as well as driving without insurance and without a licence.