An enraged motorist whose contorted face looked like "the Incredible Hulk" drove at speed with a terrified policeman hanging from his vehicle.

Angry Shaun Hargreaves, 24, deliberately hit PC Lindsay Clark near Maryport before wedging the officer's arm between the door and car frame.

Carlisle Crown Court heard the male officer was left clinging on for dear life as Hargreaves roared off, before stopping abruptly 100 metres down the road.

PC Clark escaped with minor injuries but was left seriously questioning whether he should remain in the force.

Hargreaves was sentenced having committed six offences on March 12.

He admitted two counts of dangerous driving and assaulting the officer. He also pleaded guilty to assaulting his former partner Jade Foster, possessing a 3ft-long metal bar and damaging her door and windows with it.

Prosecutor Gerard Rogerson said it was the crimes against Miss Foster and her property that resulted in police being called.

Hargreaves had burst into her home and grabbed her by the throat and pinned her to a wall in her house as shocked friends looked on.

PC Clark was one of two plain-clothed officers in an unmarked vehicle who subsequently saw Hargreaves and stopped his car.

He initially emerged with an iron bar but then appeared to calm down. PC Clark approached Hargreaves, who suddenly drove deliberately at the officer's legs.

The policeman used incapacitant spray but Hargreaves forced the officer's arm between the door and car frame before driving off.

Mr Rogerson said: "The look upon his face, he (PC Clark) describes it as similar to the Incredible Hulk. It was pure anger and pure aggression towards him.

"He changed from a normal person into an enraged person in an instant. He described it as spine-chilling."

Brendan Burke, defending, said Hargreaves had "almost always" been in work since leaving school and was employed as a foreman.

However, he was "at crisis point" in his life at the time of the offences. This was connected with a relationship which had now ended.

And it led to the incidents both at Miss Foster's home and then involving PC Clark.

Giving mitigation for the dangerous driving and assault on the officer, Mr Burke said: "It was a loss of reason and a panicked desire to escape by whatever means."

Hargreaves, of Crosby, Maryport, was jailed for 20 months by Judge Peter Davies. The judge also imposed a 12-month driving ban and a restraining order which prevents Hargreaves contacting or approaching his ex-partner for 10 years.

Judge Davies said of the illegal driving: "This was a persistent and deliberate attempt to avoid arrest."