A MOTHER-OF-TWO was last night starting a five-year jail sentence for killing a man beneath the wheels of her car.

Naomi Myers, 22, was in a rage when she got into her Fiat Punto after receiving a phone call saying that her brother’s house had been attacked by several men.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that Myers, of Park Avenue, Coxhoe, County Durham, pursued Shaun Dalby and Lee Harker into the Co-op car park in the village.

However, while running to escape, Mr Dalby slipped and fell. Before he could scramble to his feet, he was crushed beneath the car.

The weight of the vehicle crushed Mr Dalby’s chest, stopping him breathing.

Myers had denied murder, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Mark Giuliani, prosecuting, told the court that Myers was still in her nightwear when she confronted the men on February 2, last year.

She hurled abuse at the pair before they headed off into the car park. Myers then followed Mr Dalby, 28, and Mr Harker driving down a pedestrian walkway.

Mr Harker took refuge behind a van, but for Mr Dalby, who lived in nearby Church Street, there was no escape.

“He was literally run over,”

said Mr Giuliani. “He ended up trapped underneath the car, face down, his body being crushed by the weight of the car.

“He shouted ‘Harker, help’– those were his last words.”

The court was told Myers was travelling at no more than 12mph when the tragedy happened. She braked moments before and did not knock Mr Dalby over.

“It would appear the most likely explanation is there had been dampness in the air and he had slipped into the path of the car,” said Mr Giuliani.

Myers, he said, had remained at the scene and called for help when she realised the gravity of the situation.

Asked by the 999 operator if what she had done had been an accident, she said: “No, I did it on purpose.”

However, Myers later told police that although there had been a history of bad feeling between the families, she had not meant to kill Mr Dalby.

Robert Woodcock QC, in mitigation, said Myers had a stable relationship with a respectable partner and had only one previous brush with the law, a caution for assault arising from a family dispute.

He said her mistake was in not staying with her brother’s family, but instead going out to find the culprits in her car.

Mr Woodcock said that if Myers had been driving faster, Mr Dalby might have been knocked out of the way and not run over by the car.

Judge Esmond Faulks told Myers, who along with the jail sentence was also banned from driving for ten years, that following two men along a footpath in a car was “reckless and dangerous” and had had “the most appalling consequences”.

“Shaun Dalby’s family will continue to grieve and nothing I say or do will alter that,”

he said.

Afterwards, Mr Dalby’s mother, Christine, 52, described the sentence as a “joke”.

She said that Myers would one day return to her family, while she would never again see her only son.

Mrs Dalby, who also has a daughter, Leanne, and two granddaughters, said she was moving from Coxhoe because she could not bear to see the spot where her son died.

“He was a typical lad – cheeky and jokey. He got into trouble, but he was very family- oriented,” she said.

“When I was ill he looked after me and did my housework and made sure I ate.

“He had been due to move in with his girlfriend, but, of course, that never happened.

“I haven’t got Shaun and I have got no grandchildren from him to look forward to.’’