A NORTH-EAST man armed with a Samurai sword maniac brought terror to motorists on a busy main road.

Wayne Bates walked along the centre of the carriageway brandishing the 4ft blade at drivers.

He had already failed to take one woman driver hostage and was trying to comandeer a second vehicle.

Eventually he burst into a home and took a family prisoner while the house was ringed by police sharp-shooters.

The chase was filmed from the air by a police helicopter and was shown to a judge at Newcastle Crown Court, who jailed Bates, 23, for eight years.

At one point the video shows Bates step in front of a car and raise the blade, threatening to plunge it through the windscreen and into the terrified driver.

The fugitive, of Chilton Moor, Houghton-le-Spring, was jailed after a judge heard how he had threatened passers by with a hunting knife, then drew the Samurai sword and held a man hostage in his own home.

Prosecutor Robin Denny said Bates was pursued by armed police, police dog handlers, and squad cars as he fled along a railway track wielding the blades. He received consecutive jail sentences of eight years after pleading guilty to false imprisonment, five years for attempting to kidnap, and 18 months for possession of an offensive weapon in a public place.

There was no separate penalty for possession of ecstasy, a class A drug. The court heard how Bates approached 34-year-old motorist Gillian Hope as she slowed for a pedestrian crossing on Morton Crescent in Houghton-le-Spring.

As she did so Bates opened the passenger door and climbed in, pulling a knife.

Ms Hope asked him to get out of the car, and pulled the key from the ignition.

She saw Bates pulling the long, red scabbard of a sword from beneath his tee-shirt, and escaped from the car, running away with the keys in her hand.

Bates ran onto the railway line leading past Shiney Row, with the four foot long Samurai blade in one hand and the hunting knife in the other. Pursued by the police he fled up a railway embankment and ran into a house. The householder Andrew Cockburn, 36, had opened his door to see what was happening outside.

Bates put the knife to his throat and said: "Get upstairs - I'm on the run, I am armed and I'm not afraid to use them."

John Adams, mitigating, said Bates had armed himself with the Samurai sword to confront a gang of armed men who had threatened him in the street.

"He has been bullied throughout his life and was experiencing a lot of violence in the home, not only from his persistently violent father but also from his mother.

"He is ashamed of his behaviour."

The court heard Bates had a criminal record, which stretched back to 1994 and included convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, robbery, attempted robbery, criminal damage, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place, and one burglary in which he was armed with a five inch knife.