A ‘MANIC’ motorist has been banned after he deliberately rammed three innocent drivers on the A30 near Okehampton.

John Leighton sideswiped one car with his BMW Z series convertible at 70 mph before brake testing two others and then reversing into the them when they were forced to a halt.

He was driving from his home in Truro towards Exeter, where he was a mature student, when he left a trail of destruction on his wake on the morning of December 20 last year.

The former businessman dumped the BMW, which had the personalised plate X222JAL in the slow lane of the Eastbound carriageway before fleeing on foot.

Police later found him in Lifton, where he claimed he had been abducted and his car stolen. He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told doctors he was suffering a delusion in which he thought he was in a car chase.

Leighton caused the first accident by ramming a car at the Lifton turn off and went on to ram a car and a van within the space of a few miles near the Meldon exit, Exeter Crown Court was told.

He was spared a jail sentence after a judge ruled that his ‘extraordinary and bizarre driving’ was the result of a manic episode induced by him failing to take medication to control schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Leighton, aged 42, of Trehaverne, Truro, admitted dangerous driving and failing to stop after an accident and was disqualified from driving for three years with an extended retest and ordered to do ten days of rehabilitation activities as part of a two year community order.

Recorder Mr Mathew Turner told him: ‘This was an extremely poor piece of driving and it is very fortunate that nobody. The manner of your driving was bizarre, this was a prolonged incident and there was damage to other vehicles.

‘It was clearly a manic episode that you were experiencing which caused you to react in this disinhibited way.’

Mr Rowan Jenkins, prosecuting, said police received a series of calls from drivers on the A 30 at around 6.30 am on December 20 saying they had been hit by a BMW Z series sports car which had approached them at speed.

The driver of a car and a van both said Leighton pulled in front of them and then slammed on his brakes, causing one collision and reversing into the other. He also sideswiped another car after coming at speed from behind, and slowing down to pull level.

Leighton abandoned his car in the road and was found walking towards Lifton on the A388 at 1 pm. He claimed he had been abducted.

Sophie Johns, defending, said the offences arose from Leighton’s mental illness. He had stopped taking medication because if its side effects and did not realise how his health had been affected.

She said he is was under stress from his university studies at the time but is now working well with the mental health service and has no intention to drive again.