A DRUG dealer has been jailed for attacking a moving vehicle with a screwdriver.

Ashley Horne chased after the van on a street in Lower Walton after his dog had run out into the road.

On Thursday, June 14, he was jailed for causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage to the vehicle during an attack in which the 29-year-old ‘completely and utterly lost it’.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that on Friday, May 11, the complainant was driving when a puppy belonging to Horne ran out into the street.

The dad-of-two became ‘extremely aggressive from the outset’ and brandished a screwdriver, having been carrying out mechanical work on his motorbike at the time.

Self-employed electrician Horne, of Chadwick Avenue in Stockton Heath, chased after the van - which was driving at a low speed - and kicked and punched the vehicle.

He then ‘lashed out’ with the screwdriver, causing it to become embedded in the van.

The defendant’s granddad then appeared on the scene and began banging on the van, before the victim stopped his van nearby.

When the defendant ‘tried to take the heat out of the situation’ by returning the screwdriver to Horne, the defendant became ‘even more aggressive’ and the police were called.

Horne caused a total of £574 worth of damage to the van.

A week prior to the incident, he had been spared jail for producing class B drugs.

In March, Cheshire Police had discovered a cannabis farm at his then home in Lymm - with 50 plants seized from the property on Grove Avenue.

Horne was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months, having allowed his house to be used as a cannabis farm after he had ‘accrued a significant cocaine debt’.

He admitted charges of criminal damage, threatening behaviour, possession of an offensive weapon and breaching a suspended sentence.

His honour judge David Aubrey activated five months of this suspended sentence and handed Horne five months behind bars for his latest offending - giving a total 10-month jail sentence.

Horne, who has been remanded in custody since the incident, will serve half of this sentence before being released on licence.

Sentencing, judge Aubrey said: “You should have appreciated the suspended sentence hanging over your head, but a week later you completely and utterly lost it.

“You have a most unattractive criminal records - these offences are seriously aggravated by the fact that you have previous convictions for similar offences and by the breach of this suspended sentence.

“Realistically, in the near future there will be an opportunity to sort yourself out.

“If you do not take it then you will spend longer and longer in custodial institutions.”