An ice cream seller who smashed up a rival’s van has been banned from driving.

Mohammed Yousaf, 47, drove across a children’s park at speed last year in order to smash up a rival’s van as part of a bitter turf-war.

His extraordinary intimidation campaign also saw him threaten to burn down a home, beat up his business rival’s brother, and recklessly try to chase down another ice cream van with his own vehicle.

The dad-of-five was due to stand trial for a number of offences on Monday, but instead pleaded guilty to criminal damage, causing fear or provocation of violence, two counts of harassment and two charges of careless driving.

Bolton Crown Court heard how the background to the attack was Yousaf’s desire to expand his business.

“The background to this matter can be summed up in the phrase ‘ice cream wars’,” said Paul O’Brien, prosecuting.

Yousaf’s main victims were Attea Ishaq and her husband Nadeem Akhtar, who own two ice cream vans and operate their business in the Salford area.

Mrs Ishaq holds a licence to sell ice cream in Winton Park, Eccles and is a distant relative of Yousaf, although they did not know each other.

“They had been operating peacefully for a number of years,” said Mr O’Brien.

But all that changed in July last year when Mrs Ishaq was cleaning out her van outside her home in Morris Green.

Mr O’Brien told how Yousaf pulled up his own van next to it, climbed out and, without speaking, smashed three windows of Mrs Ishaq’s van, causing damage estimated at £400.

At 6am the next morning Yousaf was back, knocking on Mrs Ishaq’s door, carrying a baseball bat or piece of wood.

When she answered the door, Yousaf told her: “I’m going to kill him (Mr Akhtar). I’m going to burn your house down!”

As he walked away Yousaf smashed the window of Mrs Ishaq’s parked Vauxhall Astra.

He was arrested on August 6, but just five days later again resumed his campaign, this time making a series of threatening phone calls to Mr Akhtar.

Then on August 17 he beat Mr Akhtar’s brother, Wasim, in a chip shop, boasting about it in another call the following day telling him: “I was the man that attacked your brother - now it’s your turn!”

On August 22, Mr Akhtar was selling ice cream in Winton Park when Yousaf and his brother Omar also arrived in their vans.

Whilst Omar blocked the exit, Yousaf pull up close to Mr Akhtar’s van.

Yousaf’s attempts to get into his rival’s van failed as the doors were locked, so he returned to his own vehicle and came back with a four-inch length of metal pipe, which he used to smash the windscreen.

A horrified member of the public in the park, which was filled with children, then used his mobile phone to film Yousaf on his mobile phone driving across the grass at speed.

The following day Yousaf also encountered Mr Akhtar’s brother, Wasim, who was driving an ice cream van in the Agecroft area and chased him, driving on the wrong side of the road outside Forest Bank prison as his victim attempted to escape.

Yousaf, of Walker Avenue, Great Lever, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended for 24 months at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday.

He was also disqualified from driving for eight months and ordered to pay £700 in compensation.