A thug who caused a security guard serious injury when he squashed him between two vehicles has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.

Maciej Tymoszko told how he could "hear the sound of breaking bones" and feared his spine had been crushed. He suffered a fractured pelvis.

A judge said he accepted Thomas Harber had not meant to cause the "massive degree of internal injury", but added: "This was a nasty piece of action on your part."

The burly 24-year-old father of two young boys was convicted of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and acquitted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Harber, of Kingsingfield Road, West Kingsdown, was banned from driving for four years and will have to take an extended test before getting his licence back.

"I heard the sound of breaking bones. Initially, I thought it was my spine but then when I fell to the ground and tried to get up I couldn't..." - victim Maciej Tymoszko

Maidstone Crown Court heard the road rage happened on an industrial estate in Manor Way, Swanscombe, on March 30 last year.

Mr Tymoszko was standing by his Jeep Grand Cherokee when he was struck, trapped and then dragged by Harber's Ford Transit Tipper van.

The victim told through a Polish interpreter how the first impact forced him against the side of his car.

The motion of the van then rolled him along the car before there was a second, harder impact and he was forced to the ground.

"I heard the sound of breaking bones," he said. "Initially, I thought it was my spine but then when I fell to the ground and tried to get up I couldn't."

He told of his excruciating pain and trying to save his life.

The victim was flown by air ambulance to a London hospital to be treated for a "complex" fractured pelvis.

Harber, who had been to a nearby scrapyard, drove off. When traced by police he claimed he had been attacked by Mr Tymoszko, saying he was "screaming, shouting and hollering" at him.

Recorder Colin Reese QC said jurors had to consider two very different accounts of what happened and it was clear they broadly accepted the victim's.

"I am quite clear and satisfied that for some reason or another you, to put it colloquially, lost your rag with him after he got out of his car having backed up to let you go through.

"I agree it is unfortunate he ever got out of the car at all and began having words with you. I don't accept he acted aggressively towards you in a physical sense.

"Precisely what he said and whether he was quite as meek and mild as he suggested in evidence, I am not sure."

Recorder Reese said he would accept there might have been "a mild degree of provocation, but nothing of the sort that could possibly justify you in seeking to pin him against his car".

The judge said the maximum sentence for the offence was five years imprisonment and it fell at the top end of the range.

Harber, he said, could expect to be released halfway through the sentence if he behaved himself in prison.

No compensation was awarded to Mr Tymoszko on the basis it would be dealt with by insurance companies.

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