A DISQUALIFIED driver deliberately reversed his car into a police motorcycle and sped off leaving the officer sprawled on the roadside, a court has heard.

Security guard Jamie Manderson had been pulled over by police when he put his car into reverse and drove at the officer, Swindon magistrates were told yesterday.

Manderson, 31, of Morris Street, was alleged to have been behind the wheel of a car he had bought a week earlier, when it was stopped by PC Barry Card in Drakes Way at around midnight on January 23.

He denies dangerous driving, assaulting a police officer, causing criminal damage to a police motorcycle, failing to stop after an accident, failing to report an accident, having no insurance, obtaining property by deception and two counts of driving while disqualified.

PC Card told the court that he followed the grey Rover after it turned out of the Greenbridge pub because it seemed to be travelling faster than the other traffic and he became suspicious.

He said that he put on his blue lights and they both stopped in Drakes Way, with his motorcycle a couple of metres behind.

The officer described how, before he had time to dismount, the car's reversing lights came on and the engine revved. It then reversed into him, pushing his motorbike back several metres.

"The car braked, the motorcycle fell in the road and I fell off on the nearside, skidding along on my rear," he said.

The car then sped off down the road as PC Card, who suffered a sprained wrist, lay on the ground calling for help on the radio. Damage to the bike was valued at £2,266.

Prosecutor Lisa Hennessy said the Crown's case was that Manderson was the driver when the car reversed into the motorcycle and that he was also the driver who put petrol in his car at the Asda filling station in West Swindon and couldn't pay for it the day before.

She added that the defendant had been disqualified on September 4 last year for three years.

Former owner of the car, Martin Williams, told the bench that Manderson handed over £150 cash for the vehicle and collected it on January 15.

Mr Williams, who looked similar to the defendant with dark hair and a beard, said, under cross-examination from defence counsel Paul Orton, that he had in the past been mistaken for him. The witness said that a police officer who arrested him in 1996 for driving while disqualified had actually called him by Manderson's name.

He also agreed that when Manderson looked over the car he may have been buying it for someone else and not for himself.

However, Asda security manager Charles Ross said that he recognised Manderson when he was called to the filling station booth on January 22 after a driver told the cashier he had left his wallet at home.

He said he could not put a name to him at first but knew who he was, he said.

Mr Ross said that he later realised he was Manderson, the same man he had thanked in the past for detaining a shoplifter when he worked for a security firm called Elite in the shopping mall.

"I thanked him personally," he remembered.

When asked by the defence if he was positive about the identification of Manderson, he replied: "I am absolutely sure."

The trial continues.

Tina Clarke