A HAIRDRESSER from Wembley has been jailed indefinitely for crashing his car into his ex-partner’s home as part of a failed suicide bid.

Edmund Bruton, 42, of Harrow Road, drove his Peugeot into the front room of Tara Lavery’s property at 80mph because he thought she was seeing another man, a court heard.

Bruton crashed into the house in Reading, Berkshire, on February 26.   Four children who were in the house at the time were injured.

Bruton was sentenced on Tuesday, October 25 at Inner London Crown Court in Southwark after being convicted on September 23 of damaging property with intent to endanger life, and dangerous driving.

Judge Lindsay Burn said: “This is, in any view, a most disturbing and worrying case. Your response [to the end of the relationship] was to set about, in a pre-determined and meticulous way, to not only plan your own death but to endanger the life of your previous partner and the young children.

“Your purpose, I’m satisfied, was to end your own life but at the same time to do the maximum amount of harm you could to her and quite possibly one or more of the children. The injuries could have been very much worse. They could have even been fatal.”

The court previously heard Bruton met Ms Lavery through an internet dating site in January 2010 but they broke up a year later. He worked in IT for healthcare firm GlaxoSmithKline, but was made redundant before opening his own hair salon in Richmond, which ran into financial difficulties.

Bruton sacked his legal team on the eve of the sentencing and represented himself. He was handed an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum tariff of seven-and-a-half years, less the 227 days spent on remand, for damaging property with intent to endanger life and six months, to run concurrently, dangerous driving.

Bruton was cleared of attempted murder and damaging property while being reckless as to whether life was endangered.