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A dangerous driver who was drunk when he hit a pedestrian in Mansfield town centre while halfway through a drugs trial narrowly missed injuring a police officer who tried to stop him, a court has heard.

Ian Stone was driving a BMW on Clumber Street when he ran over the pedestrian’s foot, on the night of May 29, last year, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

Lucky Thandi, prosecuting, said that when a police officer tried to reach through the window to remove the key, Stone accelerated with enough force to fling him to the ground and narrowly miss his back wheel.

Stone, aged 24, drove off along Leeming Street and Woodhouse Road, until he crashed and wrote off his car. He was about three times over the drink-drive limit.

Ian Stone was jailed for 18 months and banned from driving for three years.

Stone, of Priory Road, Alfreton, admitted dangerous driving, driving without insurance and failing to provide a specimen.

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Zarif Khan, mitigating, said Stone was “clearly intoxicated” and could only recall “a number of people shouting towards him” and “a certain amount of bravado from the rear seat passenger”.

“It wasn’t a deliberate drive towards anyone,” he said. “Thankfully the injuries weren’t as serious as they could have been.

“He is contrite. He was under a lot of stress at the time. He says he was in the middle of a trial and he went out and acted stupidly. He doesn’t drink a lot normally.”

The court heard Stone is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence after he was convicted of drugs offences in June last year.

“He knows he will have to do some extra time,” said Mr Khan. “His most significant mitigation is his guilty plea.”

Sentencing, Judge Steven Coupland told Stone police officers have died while trying to do exactly what that officer tried to do.

“The assistant chief constable has talked about the toll this has on officers, and how many are assaulted on a weekly basis,” he said.

He said Stone was lucky his victims’ injuries were confined to a sprained ankle and bruises, but the officer considered resigning from the force afterwards.

“You drove on and crashed,” the judge told him. “It was an incredibly bad piece of driving.”

He was jailed for 18 months and banned from driving for three years.

Dangerous driver hit pedestrian in Mansfield town centre and nearly injured police officer