A DEVASTATED mother said she feared her son was going to stab her seconds before he ran her over an left her in “excruciating pain” a court heard.

Mark Buckland is accused of deliberating mowing down his mother Martha Drain in Maldon Road, Tiptree, last year.

Mrs Drain told Ipswich Crown Court she had seen Buckland by chance when they were both driving in opposite directions and he had flagged her down and signalled for her to turn around.

She said she followed him in her pick-up truck but he continued braking until she overtook him, pulled over and approached his window with a bottle of Fairy Liquid which happened to be in her car.

Mrs Drain said Buckland, 22, then produced a large knife.

“It looked like a sword,” she said.

“He was stabbing just below the window and hitting the glass with it.

“I thought he was going to stab me.”

Mrs Drain said Buckland was laughing at her so she squirted the washing up liquid at his van window before he drove at her.

She said: “He revved the van up, moved it and clipped me on the shoulder with the wing mirror.

“I blacked out and when I woke up my leg was being run over on the grass.

“I remember the pain was excruciating.”

She was left with five fractures to her left leg and had to have a metal rod put in between her knee and ankle.

When asked why she stopped when relations were so strained she said: “He is my son and I wanted to know why he wanted to speak to me.”

Mrs Drain rejected suggestions she had gone to Tiptree in a bid to seek out a confrontation.

Stephen Dyble, defending, said the Fairly Liquid bottle had actually contained a corrosive cleaning product - like bleach or vinegar - which Mrs Drain had used earlier in the day and that she sprayed it at her son’s eyes and soaked him.

He said Buckland was trying to get away when he hit her with the van and the bottle was hidden before police arrived.

But Mrs Drain said the bottle only contained Fairy Liquid which she sprayed at the window.

Buckland, of no fixed address, denies dangerous driving, grievous bodily harm with intent and an alternative charge of grievous bodily harm.

n The trial continues.