A FERRARI driver involved in a 50-mile road rage incident as he drove home to Scotland on the M6 through Cumbria has been jailed for nine months.

David Hamilton, 31, who runs a paint spraying business from his home in Chesters Cottages, Bonnyrigg, Lothian, was also banned from driving for three years and ordered to pay £800 court costs.

He had been found guilty of charges of affray and dangerous driving after a trial at Carlisle Crown Court.

Recorder Howard Bentham QC, sitting as a judge at Carlisle Crown Court, told him: "This was a deliberate act of wanton dangerous driving. It was appalling and terrifying driving. It was sheer good fortune that no injuries were caused."

During the trial in May, VW Golf driver Robin Osbourne from Carlisle told how he was boxed in and threatened by the drivers of two high-powered sports cars during a road-rage incident as he drove north on the M6.

The two luxury cars - a Ferrari and a Mercedes - overtook Mr Osbourne near Kendal, apparently racing each other, as he was driving home with his girlfriend Anna Bowman and her sister Jane on November 17, 2002.

Twenty minutes later he caught up with them after they slowed down near Shap, and he overtook them.

But after he did so, the Ferrari overtook him again, with the driver gesticulating at him.

The Ferrari then pulled in close in front of him, braking, while the Mercedes drew close behind, boxing him in. Mr Osbourne said he tried to overtake again, but the Ferrari pulled out to block his path.

They harassed him like this all the way from Kendal to Carlisle and actually drove into him as he turned off at Junction 43 hoping to find a police patrol.

Hamilton was identified as the driver of the Ferrari, but the man behind the wheel of the Mercedes has never been traced.

Hamilton had pleaded not guilty, saying it was a case of mistaken identity because neither he nor his Ferrari had left the Edinburgh area on the day of the incident.