A driver who knocked down an innocent father in Hednesford town centre has been jailed indefinitely for public protection.

Window cleaner Ashley Lunn was on a revenge mission to terrify a gang of men who had beaten him up. He deliberately mounted the pavement in his VW Golf, but his attackers got out of the way.

He then ploughed into 39-year-old Cannock man Christopher Hatfield, fatally injuring him.

Jurors cleared Lunn of murder at his trial last month, but convicted him of manslaughter.

Judge Simon Tonking branded him “a danger to the public” and ordered him to serve a minimum seven years in jail, less time spent in custody on remand, before being considered for parole.

The judge warned him, however, that he will not be released until the parole board consider it safe.

Lunn, aged 20, of Sandpiper Close, Hednesford, who denied murdering Mr Hatfield, of Rigby Drive, Chadsmoor, on October 18 last year, was also banned from driving for 10 years.

But Judge Tonking told him at the sentencing yesterday: “There is no doubt you drove on to that pavement deliberately and in a state of intense anger.

“Your beating left you with feelings of humiliation and anger and a determination to have your revenge. You exposed everybody on that pavement to the most serious danger, that must have been obvious to you, and within a moment the risk became a reality as your car literally ploughed into Mr Hatfield, a man wholly unconnected with the events that evening and was wholly innocent. He hadn’t the slightest chance to get out of the way.

“You used your car, not as a weapon to cause injury, but to take revenge by causing fear, the man you killed was wholly innocent. You didn’t stop even when your passengers intervened.”