Jailing Fatieh Shawani at Bradford Crown Court, Mr Recorder Patrick Palmer said: “It seems to me that driving a car upon the pavement, colliding with somebody on the pavement, and particularly when it’s borne out of an argument, is a very serious matter.

“Appropriate punishment in your case can only be achieved by immediate custody.”

The court heard how Fatieh Shawani, 49, of Church Street, Manningham, had been drinking in a Bradford nightclub when he spotted his ex-partner with her new boyfriend on Sunbridge Road at 8.30pm on February 14.

He approached the couple and said: “I’m going to kill you.”

The woman told him to go away, and Shawani did so but returned in his car, which he drove fully onto the pavement between shopfronts and parked cars on the roadside.

She managed to push Shawani’s door shut as he tried to get out, but he continued to drive forward.

The incident was caught on CCTV footage, which was screened in court.

It showed the man being forced to jump out of the way and the woman being pushed forward by the vehicle and up against the bonnet.

The police were called, and Shawani drove away. As the police followed, he crashed his car into a wall on Tetley Street and made off.

He was arrested the following day. The keys to the car were with him.

In an interview, he said he had had so much to drink in the two hours before the incident that he could not remember driving his car on the pavement.

He later pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and assault by beating.

In mitigation Glenn Parsons said Shawani, who appeared via video link from HMP Leeds, could have denied that he was the driver and sent the police “on a wild goose chase”.

He added: “Not only did he admit that he was the driver and that he had run away from the scene, but he was also candid enough [to admit] that he had been drinking heavily.”

He said he had expressed genuine remorse for his behaviour and the incident which he said was “by no means trivial” but that no one had been injured.

He urged the judge to suspend the prison sentence “and allow him one chance only to rehabilitate himself in the community". 

Recorder Palmer handed Shawani 10 months imprisonment for dangerous driving, plus one month for assault, to be served concurrently.

He banned Shawani from driving for 17 months, ordered him to take an extended re-test before getting behind the wheel again, and imposed a two-year restraining order banning any contact with his former partner.