A VIOLENT row between two brothers over a woman escalated dangerously as one used his car ram another off the road, leaving his sibling seriously injured.

The victim suffered two spinal fractures - but luckily was not paralysed.

The terrifying incident, which happened in Sarsfield Road in Workington, was described at Carlisle Crown Court after Jared Deakin, 32, admitted causing his brother serious injury by dangerous driving.

The offence happened on the afternoon of September 28 last year after an altercation inside a house in Everest Mount, Workington, said prosecutor Andrew Evans.

“The flashpoint,” said the prosecutor, was a claim that Jared Deakin was having a relationship with a woman who recently broke up with his brother Damian Hirst. “Mr Hirst and the defendant came to blows inside the house,” said Mr Evans.

The barrister said: “At one point, the defendant grabbed the metal tube from a vacuum cleaner; the pair battled over this, both using it to hit the other. Eventually, once Mr Hirst had gotten the upper hand, he left the house.”

CCTV showed Mr Hirst and two of his other brothers leaving the house and as they leave, according to one witness, Mr Hirst used a weapon to smash the rear windscreen of Jared Deakin’s VW Polo car, parked nearby.

Jared Deakin left the house shortly after his brothers, "roaring" as he did so, yelling: “It’s not ******* over – I’m going to kill you.”

He initially tried to get into the wrong side of his car but then got into the driver’s seat and set off at speed, following the Citroen Picasso in which his brothers had been driven away in.

Mr Evans continued: “The Polo caught up with the Citroen on the next road over. An eyewitness… describes seeing the Polo drifting and screeching around the corner, following the Citroen at high speed.

"He watched as the Polo drove into the back of the Citroen, flipping it over.”

The brother driving the rammed car recalled his mother’s wheelchair crashing into the rear seat where Damian Hirst sat, not having put on his seat belt in his rush to leave the property.  When arrested, Deakin told the police: “I only rammed him because I’d already been leathered and I didn’t meant to hit him.”

After the incident, the brother who was driving the car said: “I’ve been left upset by this… I have grown up with my brother and done so much for him and with him over the years.

“I can not really believe what he has put me through by crashing into my car, which I would normally drive with my child around in. I have been left feeling extremely hurt by this incident.”

Mr Hirst said he had needed to attend numerous hospital appointments and needed four months off work.

“He struggled to sleep properly and could not carry things as part of his job. His time off work impacted on him financially; and he also suffered mentally as a result of his ordeal.”

Deakin’s criminal record includes convictions for robbery, and affray, stalking and criminal damage.

Jeff Smith, defending, said Deakin, of Iredale Crescent, Workington, has not offended again in the 18 months since crashing into his brother’s car.

Mr Smith accepted that Deakin had used his car as a weapon but pointed out that in the house immediately before he was struck around the head with the metal hoover tube.

“What he should not have done was pursue his brother in that vehicle,” said Mr Smith.

Judge Nicholas Barker said the incident immediately before the defendant used his car to ram his brother’s vehicle had been a fight.

“You used your vehicle as a weapon to ram into them,” said the judge, adding that the victim was fortunate not to have suffered damage to this spinal cord leading to paralysis.

What Deakin did was “highly dangerous,” said Judge Barker. “You deliberately drove into a vehicle which had three passengers in it.

But the judge noted also that Deakin had ADHD and emotionally unstable personality disorder following a “less than easy upbringing.”  He jailed the defendant for 30 months and imposed a 39-month ban.