A COMMITTED Christian waved a hammer at a woman who cut him up on a roundabout.

Gordon Rogers admitted an incident of road rage which left Sheila Taylor fearing for her life last November.

Liam Finch, prosecuting at Worcester Magistrates Court, said Ms Taylor first became aware she was being followed after she left the DFS roundabout for the Berry Hill Trading Estate, Droitwich.

She admitted she had cut across several lanes and was not aware her actions had affected any other cars.

But when she checked her mirror she saw a black car driving so close behind her she could not see the numberplate. She then saw the driver making a “cut throat gesture”.

Ms Taylor continued to drive around the estate to see if he would stop following her – but then she realised he was holding a hammer, thrusting it back and forward in her direction.

Ms Taylor decided to leave the estate and make a second circuit of the roundabout, but still he followed. “I did not know whether to drive back to work or direct to the police station,” she said later.

She decided to drive back to work at DHL on the estate, stopping and calling out to the guard: “Do not let that man in. He is following me and threatening to kill me.”

But Rogers had leapt from his car and made it to her window, where he leaned into her car and yelled at her, saying she almost pushed him off the road.

Rob Macrory, defending, said Rogers, of Harport Road, Redditch, had three references, including one from a Bromsgrove county councillor, saying how out of character this was for the self-employed church-going father-of-three.

Mr Macrory said his client originally denied the use of the hammer but was then so “wracked with guilt” he went voluntarially to the police to he admit he had lied.

Magistrates fined Rogers £400 and told him to pay £500 compensation, £85 court costs and a £15 victim surcharge.