Teenager who drove over a police officer in Cheadle is jailed
Harvey Bell drove over the female officers legs and then sped off
A teenager who ran over a police officer and then "cowardly" sped from the scene has been locked up for 31 months.
Harvey Bell, 19, deliberately drove at Pc Tracy Hallworth as he knocked her to the ground and ran over her legs with both sets of wheels.
The uniformed officer from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and a male colleague responded to reports that four men were taking drugs in a black Audi at Sainsbury's car park in Cheadle at about 11.30pm on January 25.
As they approached, Bell revved the engine of the Audi and then reversed a short distance away before Pc Hallworth stood two metres in front of the vehicle and ordered him to stop.
Bell ignored her as he revved the engine again and accelerated forward with no attempt to change direction, prosecutor Sacha Waxman told Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court.
Pc Hallworth, 54, suffered a dislocated kneecap and a wound to her wrist as she was taken to hospital after she lost consciousness at the scene.
She was off work for a fortnight and although she had recovered from her physical injuries the psychological impact remained, the court heard.
Reading out her victim personal statement in court, Pc Hallworth said: "Bell drove off not knowing if I was dead or alive. It haunts me that if I fell the other way he would have gone over my head and I might not be here.
"I will never forgive Bell for the upset he caused my family. What he did to me is permanently in the back of my mind on every job I go to.
"Thanks to the support of my family and my GMP family, Bell has not been able to take away the thing I love most, my job as a police officer.
"An attack on a police officer is an attack on us all."
Bell, of previous good character, was said by his barrister, Rebecca Penfold to have expressed his "significant remorse". He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
However, Judge Jenny Lester-Ashworth noted that assertion was "at odds" with his pre-sentence report which said he felt a "sense of injustice" that he had been held on remand in custody since he handed himself in the following day.
She told the defendant: "You must have known you had hit her, but you cowardly left the scene.
"You could have killed her."
Bell, from Knutsford, Cheshire, who will serve his sentence in a Young Offender Institution, was also banned from driving for two years and ordered to take an extended retest.
Following sentencing, Victoria Agullo, senior crown prosecutor for CPS North West, said: "Assaults against frontline officers are totally unacceptable and today's sentence for Harvey Bell should leave those who would use a car as a weapon in no doubt that they will face the full force of the law."