Car jackers speed off over woman
A young woman was mown down by her own Ford Mondeo as she tried to stop two men in a violent car jacking, a judge heard.
The victim, in her 20s, was dragged out of the vehicle by two men who had lured her to a late night meeting over a debt, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.
She injured a leg and ankle after falling under the wheels while unsuccessfully trying to stop the pair driving away.
The woman claimed she owed the unspecified amount of money for shopping while one of the robbers later suggested it was linked to a drug deal, explained Mr Kevin Jones, prosecuting.
She arrived at the rendezvous near Crestwood School in Bromley Lane, Kingswinford, shortly after midnight on April 27 and gave the two men £150 before being ordered to drive them to several nearby locations before finally being told to stop in Oak Lane.
The woman was grabbed round the throat by 20-year-old Richard Halford who warned her: "You think you can mess my mate about. I have got a knife and will stab you."
The other person went through her pockets until he found the Mondeo's ignition key and the victim was man handled out of the car by the robbers in the early hours of April 27.
When the vehicle started to reverse she made a desperate lunge for the hand brake. Mr Jones continued: "As she leant into the car it speeded up. She fell and the car drove over her right angle and leg." She escaped with cuts and bruises.
The men were forced to abandon it soon afterwards after crashing into several parked vehicles in Dibdale Road, Dudley.
Police caught Halford close to the scene and arrested him with the other culprit who is now on the run after skipping bail, the court was told.
Mr Simon Hanns, defending Halford, said: "He did not know the injured party although the other man – whose idea this was – did. The defendant went along with it at a time when drink and drugs were causing his life to spiral out of control." Halford from Rowan Rise, Kingswinford, who admitted driving the Mondeo but was not at the wheel when it either ran over the woman or crashed, pleaded guilty to robbery, drink driving and having no insurance.
He was given four years ten months detention in a Young Offenders Institution and banned from driving for 12 months.
