A ROAD rage row has landed one motorist in prison after he sped off with a special police constable hanging onto his car bonnet.

Paul Kay became embroiled in a dispute with another motorist as they drove along the A66 in rush hour traffic in April this year.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Kay started gesticulating angrily at the other driver as he was annoyed that he believed he was driving too slowly in the outside lane of the busy dual carriageway.

When the pair found themselves at the same set of traffic lights at the Newport Bridge roundabout the dispute quickly escalated.

Rachel Masters, prosecuting, said the complainant got our of his car to remonstrate with Kay and warned him that he was facing arrest as he was a special constable with Northumbria Police.

Following a short stand-off Kay returned to his Vauxhall Vectra and attempted to drive away but the other man reached in through the car window and removed the keys from the ignition.

Kay managed to get them off the man and tried to drive away but the special constable stood in front of the car to block his path. At this point Kay drove away with the complainant clinging to his bonnet.

Miss Masters said: "He drove off with the man on the bonnet and headed towards West Lane when he arrived at the roundabout he braked and the other man fell off the car. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor and he called the police."

In a victim impact statement the man said he had suffered injuries to his back and suffered from 'vivid flashbacks' of the incident.

Victoria Lamballe, mitigating, told the court that her client had repeatedly asked to see the other man's warrant card but he refused and Kay became worried about the situation and tried to get away.

She added: "It was at this point at the defendant made the foolish decision to drive off with the man hanging onto his car. When he fell off, he panicked and drove off from the scene."

Kay was later arrested and charged with dangerous driving and assault occasioning actual bodily harm – offences that he pleaded guilty too.

Sentencing Kay, Judge Peter Armstrong said: "He somehow got onto the bonnet and then you drove off, with him clinging on, at speeds of up to 30mph for several hundred metres. That dangerous driving is extremely serious.

"This sort of behaviour – of driving with someone on the bonnet of a car – has the potential for causing life-changing injuries."

The 44-year-old, of Nightingale Road, Middlesbrough, was given two concurrent sentences of four months and banned from driving for 12-months.