A ROBBER threatened to blast a woman driver in the head as he hijacked her car on a busy Southampton road.

Ryan Ward, 25, planned to take the woman's car to confront the Queen because he thought she was after him and he wanted to know why, a court heard.

The extraordinary drama began after he discharged himself from Southampton General Hospital, where he had been admitted with an overdose.

Only partially clothed, he walked down Winchester Road where Alison Moore stopped at a set of traffic lights. He went to the side of her vehicle and holding one hand behind his back, told her: “I swear to God if you don’t get out of this car, I have a gun and I will shoot you in the head.”

She thought he would kill her and he took her car. However, he was stopped by police on the A3 and when arrested, was found “to be out of it”.

Of the gun threat, Judge Peter Henry told Ward: “[The driver] She was on her own and you said that to her in such a way it left her totally terrified.”

The city crown court heard the hijacking happened less than a month after Ward had been received a community order, and had left the victim suffering from panic attacks and depression.

Ward, of Gordon Avenue, Portswood, admitted robbery which put him in breach of the order, imposed for a knife-related incident at a party. He was jailed for 18 months.

The Judge Peter Henry, who read a psychiatric report, said Ward had been diagnosed with depression, an unstable personality disorder and anxiety but he was not suitable for mental health treatment in the community, nor and he could he not make a hospital order.

He also drank and took cannabis which made him a risk to others.