A disqualified driver who crashed into a car with two young children in it has been jailed.

Amir Hussain, 34, was seen driving ‘erratically’ along Manchester Road in Accrington in an Audi TT at speeds of up to 60mph, a court heard.

Hussain wrongly thought he was being chased by his partner after an argument at her house and collided with a car containing a four-year-old boy and a 13-week-old girl, the hearing was told.

He then fled the scene before telling his two passengers to report the car as stolen.

Hussain pleaded guilty at Burnley Crown Court to dangerous driving, failing to stop after an accident and driving while disqualified. He was jailed for 12 months and disqualified from driving for 18 months.

Rachel Woods, prosecuting, sasid the incident happened at around 5pm on December 27 last year.

The court was told how Hussain, who had not been drinking, had been ‘coming and going’ at a party in Accrington during the day and offered to drive a woman, who had been drinking, in her Audi TT to a shop to get food.

Miss Woods said on the way he stopped off at his partner’s house for nearly 15 minutes.

She told the court: “There was clearly some form of a domestic incident because when the defendant returned back to the vehicle he was very agitated and dishevelled.”

The court was told that as he drove off he thought a Mercedes car was following him and started driving ‘erratically’.

Miss Woods said the female car owner and her friend, who were both passengers in the car, were shouting and screaming for him to slow down and stop.

At one point Hussain tried to overtake a car but didn’t have enough room and collided with a Vauxhall containing the two young children who were left ‘shaken and crying’.

Miss Woods said that ‘rather than stop Hussain carried on driving and continued overtaking again at speed’.

He went down a number of side streets before stopping and telling the female passengers to get a taxi, leave the scene and report the car as stolen.

When police attended the scene of the collision the father of Hussain’s partner told police who was driving the Audi TT.

Hussain, of Heywood Street, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, told officers that his partner was ‘annoyed because he turned up with two women in the car’ and failed to report the collision ‘out of panic’.

Defence barrister Katie Jones said Hussain was ‘extremely remorseful’ and has ‘apologised profusely’.

The court was told that the warehouse manager had been disqualified from driving in July 2016 for drink driving and had also previously been jailed in 2011 for six years for firearms offences.

He was released on licence from the sentence in 2014 but has now been recalled until September 2017.

Miss Jones told the court: “His decision to drive this car of a friend on this day was clearly a gross error of judgement to which he is now paying a heavy price.

"He has a dreadful record for much more serious offending. It has hit him very hard this sentence because he is now a father.”

Miss Jones said his partner was the person driving the Mercedes but she was travelling to her mother’s and wasn’t following or chasing him.

Sentencing, Judge Andrew Woolman said: “You made a conscious decision to drive that Audi TT.

"You either were being chased, or at least thought you were, but nothing justifies the dreadful driving you then carried out.

“It was only by good luck that nobody was seriously hurt.”