A LORRY driver has told how a row with his girlfriend turned into a "nightmare ordeal."

Shaun James Owen, 33, told Blackburn magistrates that his former partner attacked his car with a spade, smashing windows and lights.

And as he sat inside the car smoking a cigarette to calm his nerves she doused the vehicle with petrol.

"I was petrified," Owen told the court. "It would only have taken a spark to set the whole thing off and I just wanted to get away. I feared for my life and that of other people and property in the area."

Owen, of Lomax Street, Great Harwood, had previously pleaded guilty to driving with excess alcohol, and the case had been adjourned for him to put forward special reasons why he should not be disqualified.

The magistrates rejected his application and Owen was banned from driving for 18 months and fined £200 with £160 costs.

Eddie Harrison, prosecuting, said that to find special reasons not to disqualify the magistrates had to be satisfied that Owen had been in an emergency situation and that was the reason he had driven.

He said police in Leicester Road at 11 pm on July 11 heard car wheels screeching and saw a Jeep which they followed into Hereford Road.

The car stopped in a lay-by and the officers saw Owen stumble out of the vehicle. He was arrested and a breathalyser revealed a reading of 90 against the legal limit of 35.

Owen told the court he had been out drinking with his girlfriend and they had argued because she suspected him of having an affair.

He said when he returned to her home in Worcester Road his girlfriend was wielding the spade which she used to smash the windscreen of his Jeep.

Sian Hall, defending, said Owen's account of the events amounted to an emergency situation.