A WEDDING guest said to be "gone with the wind", drove wildly round a hotel car park, using his car as a weapon, striking his step-mother and dragging her along the ground, and repeatedly driving at his step-brother.

Ben Ashman then drove off "in a rage", leaving his step-mother lying seriously injured in the car park of the Bowburn Hall Hotel, near Durham, heading for the A1(M) with restricted vision after his window was shattered by other wedding guests trying to prevent him from taking to the wheel of his car.

He finally came to a halt on the hard shoulder seven miles down the A1(M) with his Vauxhall Grandland on only three tyres, in the early hours of August 24 last year.

A passenger in a passing car saw Ashman and his girlfriend walking along a grass embankment and approached them, offering assistance.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the witness described Ashman as appearing to be “gone with the wind”, almost bragging about what he had just done.

Jolyon Perks, prosecuting, said Ashman told the passer-by: “I’ve just had a fight with nine people. They started pelting my car with bricks, so I ran three of the b******s over.

“You would have done it if it was your girlfriend.”

He dropped the couple at a petrol station at nearby Bradbury and reported it to police, who arrested Ashman there a short time later.

Officers had already been called to the hotel by the manager following the carnage in the car park, where the dispute had developed at the end of the wedding of another step-brother of Ashman, Connor Ashman.

The defendant’s girlfriend complained at the way another man had looked at her.

Ashman, said to have mental health issues and not being a regular drinker due to the medication he was on, reacted with violence, striking another man.

His step brother Kyle intervened but was punched by Ashman, and when he got in his car, efforts were made to prevent him from driving.

An acquaintance of his girlfriend tried to reach into the car to remove the keys, but had the door slammed on her arm, while Kyle Ashman threw a painted stone at the driver’s side of windscreen.

But it only enraged Ashman who drove up to Kyle’s shins, just braking, then he chased him round the car park, trying to hit him, shunting into a woman’s parked Nissan Juke, causing extensive damage.

When his step-mother, Kate, who had come down from her hotel room due to the commotion, initially tried to intervene, she became involved in a confrontation with Ashman’s girlfriend, but in the subsequent efforts to prevent him driving away, she was struck by his car and driven over, before being dragged along the ground.

The court heard she was taken, seriously injured, to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, where she spent the next ten days being treated for multiple injuries across her body, including six fractured ribs.

She was said to still suffer long-term physical and psychological effects from her injuries.

Ashman, when first questioned, denied much of what was alleged against him, saying he panicked fearing attack and was trying to get out of the car park.

Having initially been charged with attempted murder, that count was subsequently replaced with a charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Three weeks before his scheduled trial, earlier this year, the 37-year-old, of Sunderland Street, Houghton-le-Spring, admitted the charge, plus common assault, attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, dangerous driving, criminal damage and failing to provide a breath specimen.

Lewis Kerr, mitigating, said the incident was out of character for the defendant who has little on his previous record, with no offences committed since 2007.

Mr Kerr said the alcohol consumed, added to his mental health issues and the medication he was taking, made him more impulsive, reacting to what he perceived as provocation, for which he is now deeply remorseful.

Bu Mr Kerr said Ashman has tried to address those issues with the help of services available to him while on remand in prison.

Imposing a six-year prison sentence, Judge Robert Adams told Ashman he accepted it was out of character, due to the combination of drink and the medication he was on, which caused him to act on impulse.

But he said: “This was an appalling example of dangerous driving, driving aggressively at people, with intent to cause serious harm, at least to one person.”

Judge Adams said it was lucky no-one was more seriously injured of even killed.

He also banned Ashman from driving for five-and-a-half years.