Son jailed for driving into mother’s ex-partner

A man was jailed for 32 months yesterday after driving his car into his mother’s abusive former partner – despite a plea by the victim to spare him imprisonment.

Robert Coleman drove at Stephen Haggerty and hit him with his VW Golf, tossing him into the air before the victim landed on the windscreen and was thrown against a wall.

Minutes before the assault Coleman, 29, had been told the victim had “battered” his mother, Jacqueline Hartley.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Mr Haggerty had written letters expressing the hope that Coleman would be dealt with as leniently as possible. Coleman’s defence counsel Allan Macleod told the court: “He says he hopes Mr Coleman will not get jail.”

But Lady Scott told Coleman: “To deliberately drive a car at anyone at speed is a serious act of violence and obviously endangers life.”

The judge said she accepted that there was a background to the offence including a “his- tory of mistreatment of your mother by the victim”.

But she added: “This assault was not an instantaneous reaction whereby the acted under provocation. I cannot accept this was a split second decision.”

Coleman, of Graham Avenue, Clydebank, had admitted assaulting Mr Haggerty by driving a car at him at speed.