A drug addict who subjected a mother to a terrifying car jacking by threatening her four-year-old daughter with a hypodermic syringe has been jailed for ten years.

Scott Brown had been out of prison for only a week when he jumped into the back of the woman’s vehicle as she drove the child to school in Cleckheaton.

Brown, 33, was wearing a hooded top when he struck shortly after confronting a sleeping householder on the town’s Richmond Road and making off with her handbag, £180 cash and a phone.

He pleaded guilty to kidnapping the mother and child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, robbing the woman of her car and the house burglary.

Prosecutor Elyas Patel told Bradford Crown Court yesterday, the mother, in her 30s, was petrified by her ordeal on September 27 last year and she and her daughter had suffered nightmares.

Brown, of Rede Avenue, Fleetwood, Lancashire, was released from a four-year sentence for burglary on September 20.

He was left stranded in the Cleckheaton area after being given a lift to buy drugs.

At 4.20am, a woman woke to find Scott standing behind her in the lounge.

At 8.40am that same day, Brown, who was desperate to steal a car to drive home, pounced when the mother stopped at traffic lights near Bradford Road.

He leaped into the back of her car, next to the child, and said: “I’ve got a needle. I don’t want to hurt your daughter. I just want you to drive.”

When other women motorists approached the car to help, Brown pointed the needle at the little girl.

The petrified woman drove to Snelsins Lane, Cleckheaton, where Brown ordered her out, with her daughter, and drove off.

He was arrested in Lincolnshire after he was chased by the police on foot over gardens and fields.

Officers recovered a hypodermic syringe filled with Brown’s blood from the car.

Brown’s solicitor advocate, Neil Murphy, said he had no offences of violence on his record and never intended to hurt mother or child.

The judge, Recorder Jeremy Barnett, said the mother was “terrified and traumatised”.

He praised Heidi Tomlinson and Suzanne Bradley for approaching the car to help the mother and then following it. Each was awarded £100.