DRUNKEN RAGE
THIS is the shocking moment and a furious driver ploughed his car into punters outside a pub following a drunken row.
Gavin Chesterman, 31, used his car as a revenge weapon - and was tackled by customers as he sat in the wreckage.
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A court heard he was caught on CCTV as her deliberately drove at Luke Palmer in a drunken rage outside the Royal Oak pub in Pontypool, Gwent.
His intended victim jumped out of the way - but he struck Lauren Bull who was forced under the front of his Vauxhall Astra car which collided into railings.
Chesterman was aiming the car at Mr Palmer after the two had come to blows during a row earlier in the night.
Prosecutor Jason Howells: "The defendant accelerated forwards towards the pub driving through the railings that separate the beer garden from the street.
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"The 10 or 12 people present who had been talking scattered.
"As it struck the railings, the car also struck Lauren Bull who had been standing on the pavement facing the pub and with her back to the defendant.
"She was forced under the front of the car.”
Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard she was taken to hospital but was not seriously injured.
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Mr Howells said: "The defendant was still revving the engine and a witness got the impression that he was trying to move the car.
"Others then smashed the passenger window to get at the keys.
"There was a brief scuffle with those around the defendant before he ran off."
Chesterman, of Trevethin, Pontypool, pleaded guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and dangerous driving.
The judge, Recorder Greg Bull KC, told him: "You drove in a dangerous and outrageous manner.
"Whatever your grievance against Mr Palmer, that was no excuse for you going into your car in a drunken state, driving it without its lights illuminated and then driving it quite deliberately at Mr Palmer intending to inflict really serious harm on him.
"If you had hit him and he’d died, you would have been charged with murder.
"As it is, the terrifying act of driving that car at speed as is evidenced from the CCTV footage towards Mr Palmer, caused him to jump out of the way but sadly the car collided with Lauren Bull and also caused another pedestrian to also jump out of the way sustaining injury.
"You drove at a crowd of people as the CCTV shows and it is remarkable that nobody was more seriously injured than they were.
"This was deliberate, there was a small degree of planning and as you drove towards the gathering, the lights of the car were off and as has been admitted you had an intention to cause really serious harm to Mr Palmer.
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"Mercifully, not really serious harm was the result.”
Chesterman was jailed for 40 months and banned from driving for five years.
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