A man was today beginning a four-year jail sentence after admitting taking a £32,000 Mercedes from a woman at knifepoint.

Paul Fairburn, 26, had been drinking heavily when he approached the woman as she left a beauty salon in the Triangle shopping area of Langdon Hills.

Southend Crown Court heard that as the woman got into a car she noticed Fairburn walking towards her.

He pulled out a knife and ordered the terrified woman out of her car.

As she sought refuge in a nearby newsagents, two people persuaded the driver of a Ford Transit to block the exit of the carpark.

Once cornered, Fairburn drove the luxury car into a bollard before running off.

He was later picked up by police who had toured the streets with a witness to the crime.

Andrew McGee, defending, said his client, who was drunk on prescription medication and alcohol, had no recollection of the events on March 14 last year.

Mr McGee said Fairburn did accept responsibility for the incident and was "profoundly remorseful".

He said: "There was no gratuitous violence.

"He was not brandishing the knife in any violent or lunging way."

Fairburn, the father of a baby son, was said to have got into difficulties following the death of his mother and the breakdown of a long-term relationship.

However, Judge Frank Lockhart said: "For the lady to be threatened at knifepoint by a drunk man trying to make off with her car must have been beyond what one can imagine."

Commending the bravery of the people who had gone to the woman's assistance, Judge Lockhart said four years was the minimum sentence he could impose.

Published Monday, January 20, 2003

Brought to you by the Evening Echo