A MAN “consumed with jealousy” carried out a drive-by shooting on a parked van, believing the driver was having an affair with his long-term partner.

Wayne Kelsey used a firearm, bought from a man in a pub a fortnight earlier, to shoot at the van, in a lay-by near an Indian restaurant in Haswell Plough, east Durham, early on the evening of October 30 last year.

Durham Crown Court was told the van driver, who pulled into the lay-be to make a phone call, was aware of a vehicle with no lights on, driving slowly past, before suddenly hearing a loud thud.

Ros Scott Bell, prosecuting, told the court: “He thought a brick had been thrown at his vehicle.

“Looking up, he saw the vehicle travelling away, at speed.

“He got out and saw his van had what looked like shotgun holes in it.”

Miss Scott Bell said, fearing the marksman may return, he drove to nearby Haswell village to report the incident to two officers leaving a neighbourhood meeting.

The van driver was left “distressed and alarmed”, unable to understand why he had been targeted, and felt he was lucky not to have been seriously injured.

Miss Scott Bell said Kelsey’s ex-partner subsequently reported a conversation with him in which he seemed to admit responsibility, telling her she would be “next”.

“The defendant thought she was having some sort of affair with the other man, so it was a targeted attack.”

Kelsey denied responsibility when questioned, telling police he had been in the area, “buying drugs”.

While on bail as further investigations took place, Kelsey led at least two police vehicles on a 15-mile chase from Easington Colliery, which ended after he drove through the barrier of a multi-storey car park in Durham, abandoning his vehicle before being chased and arrested in the city centre, on December 30.

Forty-one-year-old Kelsey, of Handel Terrace, Wheatley Hill, County Durham, admitted possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and criminal damage to the van, plus dangerous driving.

Shaun Dryden, mitigating, said: “He believed, rightly or wrongly, his long-term partner was having an affair with the complainant and couldn’t deal with the end of the relationship.

“He was consumed with jealousy and tried to ‘frighten him’ out of the relationship he believed the other man was having with his partner.

Mr Dryden, who described it as, “an isolated incident”, said the defendant cut the weapon up using a grinder,discarding the remains in a skip.

Jailing him for a total of seven years, Judge Simon Hickey told Kelsey the shooting was, “clearly pre-meditated”.

He added that the “staggeringly bad” driving was among the worst he had come across as a judge, and issued a motoring ban of three years.