A FATHER-of-three who knocked down a police officer when he was pulled over for stealing petrol escaped jail today.

PC Damon Farry was left grazed and bruised after being dragged along the floor and said his 'life flashed before his eyes' when he was knocked down by a silver BMW driven by Kyle Roberts, of Liscombe in Bracknell, in January.

Roberts, 30, received an 11 month suspended sentence for assault causing actual bodily harm, dangerous driving and six counts of bilking, taking fuel without paying for it, when he appeared at Reading Crown Court this afternoon.

PC Farry and partner PC Peake tried to pull Roberts' car over on January 16 after recognising it as the same one caught not paying for petrol six times at stations across Bracknell and Wokingham between December 6, 2014 and January 11, 2015. 

However Roberts attempted to drive off after turning into Ridgeway in central Bracknell, knocking PC Farry to the floor in the process who was trapped between the BMW and police car and dragged along the floor.

Matthew Scott, prosecuting, explained how the constables followed Roberts' car into Ridgeway and attempted to speak to him, even trying to open the driver side door, before he drove off. 

Mr Scott said: "He did sustain some painful but thankfully not very serious injuries to his legs as well as grazing and bruising. 

"Although in themselves these injuries may not be the most serious, what comes across even more than his physical injuries is the mental impact this has had. 

"His life flashed before him and he was terrified he was going to be killed."

In an 'unusal' victim statement, read out by Mr Scott, PC Farry addressed Mr Roberts directly and said: "I have spent the last eight months visiting a physiotherapist trying to address the pain in my knee. 

"I'm a husband and father to the two most beautiful creatures in the world and you could have taken me from them that night." 

Mr Scott continued: "He spent a week at home looking at his bruised legs wondering how he still had them." 

Defending Nathan Daly asked the judge to give Roberts, a father to three children, the youngest just eight months old, credit for his early guilty pleas and said he had 'regressed' to the mental state of himself ten years ago after the temporary breakdown of his relationship.

Mr Daly said: "I have to accept that the most aggravating feature is that the injured party here was a police officer who was trying to do his duty.

"At the time of these offences back in early January he had a break down in his relationship with his partner and it seems that he had gone back to the position he was in ten years ago. 

"Taking fuel without paying when every petrol station has CCTV system is an indication of the sort of state he was in at the time. He realises now just what an idiot he has been. He is now in a stable relationship with his partner and we can see his mum is here today to support him in the same way he supports her.

"This is a man who regressed to how he was ten years previously and the maturity he gained in that time seems to have left him."

Giving him credit for pleading guilty to all offences, Judge Ian Grainger said Roberts was lucky the officer did not sustain more serious injuries. 

"Mercifully he did not sustain serious injuries, he suffered grazing and bruising to both legs." he said.  

"You had ample time to stop.

"You had a cocaine habit at the time of the bilking offences but there is no evidence you were under the influence at the time of the dangerous driving. 

"It was a shocking display of how not to deal with police officers and a display of how not to drive."

Roberts received nine months for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and nine months dangerous driving, to run consecutively and two months for the six bilking offences.

The 11 month sentence has been suspended for 18 months and Roberts will have to complete 200 hours of unpaid community work, pay a £100 victim surcharge and £300 compensation to PC Farry.