A FATHER-of-eight who left a knife thug seriously injured after running him down with a car has been jailed.

The incident happened after Stephen Armstrong, challenged two people he caught painting gang slogans, including Welcome To Hell', on a fence. He reported them to a parent, who oversaw the covering up of the graffiti.

But the following day, as Armstrong, 47, left his home in a Glasgow cul-de-sac, he found one of the vandals had returned to the street with an older man.

The 22-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pulled out a knife and a baton as trouble flared and broke a window in Armstrong's car.

Armstrong then accelerated in his car and struck the thug.

The former publican, of Waukglen Gardens, Darnley, had previously admitted assaulting the victim to his severe injury, permanent disfigurement and impairment and to the danger of his life last April 12.

He was jailed for three years and eight months.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lady Smith told him she considered she had no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence and would have sentenced him to five years had he not pleaded guilty.

Lady Smith said: "There seems no doubt he presented weapons at you and he deliberately broke a window in your van.

"You were entitled to be angry. You were entitled to be affronted. But you were not entitled to respond by wielding your vehicle as a weapon at him in the way you did," she said.

Armstrong had originally been charged with attempted murder, but the Crown accepted his guilty plea to the reduced charge.

The victim suffered a broken leg and collar bone and punctured lung and spent more than six weeks in hospital.