NURSE Sue Bramah-Adams has described how a lorry driver subjected her to a terrifying road rage ordeal by tail-gating her at high speeds with his 38-tonne truck before sending her car spinning into a ditch.

Mrs Bramah-Adams, 35, was driving home near Bloxham last September when she overtook the lorry, being driven by 33-year-old Lawrence Mulroy.

After she pulled in front of him, she says, Mulroy, whose lorry was fully laden with grain, flashed her with his lights, which she thought was a signal allowing her to carry on.

But instead, her mirror gradually showed the front of Mulroy's lorry inching closer to the back of her tiny Mitsubishi Colt until he was a dangerously short distance behind.

"Lorries sometimes flash you when you pull in front and initially I had no idea that there was a problem," Mrs Bramah-Adams, of Croughton, near Bicester, said.

"But then he proceeded to speed up and spent the next two miles hassling me and he tried to overtake me twice, but I don't know if he had any intentions of trying to get past me.

"I was very frightened. I was doing 65 miles an hour but he just kept getting faster. I didn't know whether to slow down or speed up more." Eventually Mrs Bramah-Adams turned off to Adderbury, her normal route home, and thought Mulroy had given up the chase, but he followed her, defying a ban on vehicles weighing over seven tons using the road.

"I saw his lorry and thought 'Here we go again'. I decided to stick to the 30 miles an hour speed limit and try to ignore him, to pretend he wasn't there. Then I suddenly felt a bang on the car and went spinning round. His lorry had actually clipped the car. I ended up in someone's drive.

"Luckily there were no pedestrians or cyclists nearby. This happened in the middle of the village so someone easily could have been killed." Mrs Bramah-Adams' car was a write-off and she received treatment for neck and back injuries, but says she was back driving two weeks later, determined not to let the incident put her off.

Mrs Wendy Blake, who was driving behind Mrs Bramah-Adams, thought that Mulroy speeded up as the nurse overtook. She described to the police how the trailer on the lorry was bouncing about and she was so concerned thatabout what might happen she followed the two vehicles and made a mental note of the truck's registration number.On Friday

Trucker is jailed for six months A TRUCK driver was jailed for subjecting nurse Sue Bramah-Adams to a horrifying ordeal by chasing her in his 38-tonne lorry before sending her car into a spin.

Lawrence Mulroy, 33, was given a six-month prison sentence after he ignored speed and weight limits as he raced after her on a main road and down country lanes with a wagon fully laden with grain.

Recorder Richard Benson told him: "This was a disgraceful piece of driving. It was daylight when this happened and you would have known perfectly well that the driver of that small saloon car was a woman."

He said other motorists put their trust in lorry drivers as they know what 'lethal weapons' trucks can be in the hands of the wrong person. He also banned Mulroy from driving for two years and said he would have to take a test before he could drive again. Mulroy, of High Street, Syresham, Northants, who was working for Faccenda Chicken in Brackley, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving before Banbury magistrates but was sent to crown court for sentence.

Michael Knight, defending, told the court that Mulroy, whom he described as a generous person who would go "the extra mile in helping people", accepted his behaviour was irresponsible, dangerous and inexcusable.

He said: "Mr Mulroy is remorseful. In interview he said 'I'm very sorry about this whole incident. I would like to say that I hope she has not been seriously hurt.'"

He added that Mulroy, who has had an HGV license for seven years, felt that Mrs Bramah-Adams provoked him by cutting in sharply and he did not ram her deliberately.

His next-door neighbour Mrs Beryl Green, an estate agent, said: "When I first met him, I thought 'Oh no, that's my next-door neighbour' but looks can be deceiving.

"He is a true gentleman, a very gentle person that would do anything to help anybody, particularly the elderly. I know it's totally uncharacteristic of him to lose his temper in that way."

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