by Julia Roberts

A pregnant woman thought she was “going to die” when she was allegedly mown down during a road-rage incident, a court heard.

Emma Harrington, 25, told a jury at Maidstone Crown Court how she was struck by the front of the Peugeot 206 driven by Gemma Fraiser.

Miss Harrington, who was three months pregnant at the time of the incident in January, said the vehicle knocked her to the ground and she tried to protect herself with her hands as she came face-to-face with the tyres.

She suffered cuts and grazes to her neck, both hands and wrists, as well as whiplash to her neck and back. Her leggings were ripped and her skirt had a hole in it.

Fraiser, 27, of Coombe Road, Maidstone, denies dangerous driving and assault causing actual bodily harm.

Trouble flared just after 9pm in Lidsing Road, Hempstead, on Saturday January 14. There had been an altercation between the two drivers just minutes earlier when they could not pass each other in the road.

Words were exchanged and a beer can was thrown by a man sitting in the front passenger seat of Fraiser’s car. Two children were also in the vehicle.

The can went through Miss Harrington’s open window, hitting her arm. She drove away but then decided to turn around and follow the Peugeot after her boyfriend, who had overheard the incident through Miss Harrington’s mobile speakerphone, told her she needed the registration number to report an assault.

After about five minutes she caught up with Fraiser’s car and it stopped in front of her. Miss Harrington said she saw the passenger door open so she turned her car around again to go home.

But the jury heard the man and woman suddenly appeared at her side window, shouting and angry.

Miss Harrington also told the court that their car was, by now, in front of hers but she could not explain how. Miss Harrington’s boyfriend then pulled up in his BMW.

Having got out and confronted the male passenger, Miss Harrington said a scuffle broke out between the two men in front of all three cars.

Crying as she gave evidence, Miss Harrington said she ran along the pavement towards them and tried to intervene.

“I tried to split them up and said: ‘Enough is enough’. All I remember is being hit by the car. I felt it hit my right hip. I was stood on the pavement. I fell onto the bonnet and then onto the floor. My hands were all bloody and I bumped my head and my leg.

“All I remember is the car going back and coming at me again. I thought I was going to die.”

She explained her hands were injured when the “tyres” went over them. “It (the car) was going forwards and I tried to protect myself by putting my hands up,” she said.

Under cross-examination, Miss Harrington denied chasing and cutting in font of Fraiser’s car, intimidating the occupants, or her boyfriend giving the male passenger “a thumping”.

She also maintained that she had not been standing beside the car but had gone under the front.

“It drove back and that’s when I saw the tyres by my face and I shielded myself,” she added. “All I could see was the car. I just saw these tyres in front of my face.”

The trial continues.