A 35-year-old man who used his car as a battering ram following an argument at a burger bar has been jailed for 14 months.

John Connors, from near Chippenham, drove his Ford Sierra containing his pregnant wife and children across a grass verge before smashing into the side of a Land Rover, causing a man to leap out of the way.

Swindon Crown Court heard the trouble flared on the morning of September 23 last year at McDonald's in Melksham.

Jenny Tallentire, prosecuting, said Shane Thornton was going on holiday to Wales with his wife and two children and stopped for breakfast.

"As he was leaving and coming through the swing doors of the restaurant he accidentally knocked over a young boy, causing him to fall to the floor.

"He helped him up. The boy was the son of this defendant. The defendant said 'Why don't you watch where you are going'."

The two men swapped blows in the car park.

"At one stage the defendant lifted a mountain bike up as if he were going to throw it at him but he did not," she said.

The fight was stopped by a member of staff and Mr Thornton got in his car and drove away.

She said he pulled over nearby on Beanacre Road outside shops known locally as the Poppin area.

As he got out of the car she said the defendant left the car park, screeching his wheels, and drove straight across the road into the side of his stationary Land Rover.

She said: "The blue Sierra was driven directly across the grass verge towards the Land Rover.

"At that time Mr Thornton was standing out of the vehicle next to the rear door. His wife and children of four and four months were inside.

"Witnesses say the car was travelling at about 40mph and it piled straight into the side of the Land Rover.

"Mr Thornton, to avoid being hit by the Sierra, had to jump into the air and he landed somehow on the bonnet of the Sierra.

"Mrs Thornton said she was terrified, the children were crying and very distressed."

She said Mr Thornton was so enraged by what had happened he chased Connors down the road and attacked him.

When he was questioned by police Connors said that he had intended to frighten Mr Thornton by 'skimming' the Land Rover.

He told officers 'I just meant to catch it'.

Rosie Collins, defending, said her client did not realise Mr Thornton's wife and young children were in the car at the time and had not driven at him but swerved to miss him.

She said her client was 'dazed and confused' following the fight in the car park and may have been suffering from concussion which made him act how he did.

After the incident she said Mr Thornton caught her client and administered 'summary justice and summary punishment'.

She said that he not only had a wife and a number of children to support but also his mother and his sister, who also had four children.

At an earlier hearing, Connors, of Thingley Caravan Park, Thingley, near Chippenham, admitted dangerous driving.

Recorder Christopher Clark QC told Connors: "It is pure chance that nobody was injured as a result of that action on your part. You used your car as a weapon."

Connors was also banned from driving for four years.