A road rage victim asked to die when doctors told him about his horrific injuries.

Luke Guilford, 31, suffered catastrophic spinal injuries when he was a passenger in a car with boyfriend Thomas Penn who lost control of the vehicle and smashed into the front of a house.

He was being pursued by an Audi, which left the scene without trace.

Now Mr Guilford has revealed how he asked his sister to cut his breathing tube and wished he hadn't survived the crash.

The collision happened when Penn – who was over the legal limit for driving with cannabis in his system – was speeding in an uninsured Ford Focus convertible in Braunstone Frith, Leicester, at 10.30pm on April 7 last year.

Penn pleaded guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and was jailed for three years and four months at Leicester Crown Court, reports Leicestershire Live .

On being told of irreversible damage to his spine, Mr Guilford said n a victim impact statement: "I felt empty inside and I remember asking to be euthanised.

"I asked my sister to cut my breathing tube, I didn't want to live. My life looks nothing like it was before the accident.

"Some days I just get on with things, and other days I don't want to do anything.

"My anger and frustration at the situation builds up and I've no way to offload it. I can't go for a run, throw something or even shout, because I can't shout loud; I work myself up and get very out of breath.

"I feel like a prisoner in my body and my home. I'm trapped like this in my own skin with no way out.

"To think this will be my life now is a very depressing thought. I wish I hadn't survived the accident, I just feel it would be better if I wasn't here."

Penn, 28, admitted the offence on the basis that he was under duress whilst fleeing from the Audi, and was not, as the prosecution claimed, racing when he hit a kerb, uprooted a tree and jettisoned into the house.

Judge Martin Hurst heard evidence on the circumstances from witnesses, as well as the defendant.

He concluded that Penn's account was inconsistent and unreliable but said he could not be sure, in law, that Penn was racing at the time of the collision.

The defendant gave conflicting accounts of encountering the Audi on the roundabout near Glenfield Hospital, claiming an occupant threw bottles or cans at his vehicle, before driving away.

He claimed he later saw the Audi and pursued it to ask why something was thrown at his vehicle.

Penn said the Audi contained members of the "travelling community" who had Irish accents, were wearing balaclavas or scarves with hoodies, and had frightened him by getting out of their car when he stopped.

He then overtook the Audi, and claimed that it was while being chased that he lost control and crashed.

Penn suffered a broken neck in the crash and for a time wore a medical halo device.

Mr Guilford suffered catastrophic and irreparable spinal injuries, said Andrew Peet, prosecuting.

The crash left the 31-year-old tetraplegic – paralysed from the shoulders down.

When he was told he had lost the use of his arms and legs, and that other organs were affected, he asked medics if he could be euthanised and said he wished he had not survived the crash.

Now a lifetime wheelchair user, the victim is reliant on others for round-the-clock care.

Driver Penn told the court: "I didn't do it deliberately. He (Mr Guilford) was my partner and I loved him."

He also said: "I'm not a boy racer, I wasn't racing in any way, shape or form."

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