A hit-and-run driver who left a police officer with a fractured skull has been jailed for seven years and four months for causing grievous bodily harm with intent to resist arrest.

Tekle Lennox, 37, of no fixed address, was filmed on another motorist’s dashcam driving his Mini when it struck PC Chris Burnham, knocking him on to the windscreen and carrying him on the bonnet for almost three seconds before throwing him into the road.

Lennox, who has convictions for driving and drugs offences, showed no emotion in the dock as he watched footage of his victim lying injured near a roundabout in Coventry after being carried along by the Mini for 42 metres (138ft).

Chris Burnham after his release from hospital last year. Photograph: West Midlands police/PA

Warwick crown court heard on Tuesday that Burnham, 48, sustained multiple injuries, including a shattered knee and a bleed on the brain associated with a head injury.

The constable was trying to apprehend Lennox, who was serving a three-year road ban for drug-driving and driving while disqualified, after he failed to pull over in the Holbrooks area of Coventry on 25 September last year.

Judge Peter Cooke heard that Lennox had less than a second to react after Burnham walked out from behind a van, but then failed to brake, and later increased his speed from around 18mph to 24mph.

Passing sentence, Cooke also handed the pub worker a five-year driving ban, to be served after his release from prison.

The judge said he accepted that no driver would have had enough time to avoid the collision but that Lennox had put in train a set of events that had changed PC Burnham’s life, possibly for ever.

The judge told Lennox: “The impacts on PC Burnham have been profound and, sad to say, the degree of permanence of those consequences remain uncertain even today.

“He and his family have been through hell over the past few months. These events came about because you would not be stopped by the police when you were at the wheel of that Mini.”

Describing the collision, the judge told Lennox: “You hit Mr Burnham ... he was thrown up in the most horrific fashion on to the bonnet of the vehicle.

“He was then carried 42 metres along the road from the point of impact before he fell from the car. During that period you made no attempt whatever to mitigate your speed. If anything, you just accelerated to get away.”

Burnham, who is married with a young son, was left in a critical condition and spent a week in an induced coma, before being discharged from hospital in October 2019. A JustGiving page, set up last year, raised £3,284 to support the officer and his family while he was in hospital.

Burnham was in court for the sentencing, but chose not to watch the dashcam footage shown to the court.

Lennox was initially charged with attempted murder but that charge was dropped by prosecutors in the autumn. He also admitted driving while disqualified, driving without insurance and counts of possessing cocaine, heroin and cannabis.