A TEENAGER accused of using his car as a "weapon" in an attack which left two young women seriously injured was panicked and terrified, and didn't know he had run them over, a court has heard.

McCauley Cox, 19, is accused of deliberately driving into a crowd of young people in his car after a fight broke out outside a nightclub in Newport city centre on April 29.

Today, Mr Cox denied a claim from prosecutor James Wilson that he had "used the car as a weapon", and told the court he accidentally ran over victims Sophie Poole and Emma Nicholls after becoming "frightened" by revellers threatening to "batter" him.

Addressing the jury for a final time today, Nicholas Gedge for the defence told the jury his client had "panicked", and was terrified because of an incident that had seen his friend stabbed outside a nearby nightclub just weeks before.

Mr Gedge said: "Bear in mind his age, 18 then and 19 now. He was sitting in a car being violently attacked and damaged. I ask you, who wouldn't have significant degree of panic?

"When the fight breaks out it's not far off all hell breaking loose. He was worried for his friends' safety.

"Consider too how the defendant was feeling in that car. People were demanding that he get out and were threatening to batter him. Not only was he panicked and frightened, but he had an additional fear because of what happened a few weeks before on a nearby street to his friend, Preston Roberts, who was stabbed in the neck at a similar time of night."

Showing the jury the CCTV footage of the night in question, Mr Gedge also invited them to consider whether Mr Cox turned his wheel to face the crowd before an unidentified man walked into the car's path. If so, continued Mr Getch, that would reflect favourably on his defendant.

Mr Cox has denied trying to hit the unidentified man, and also denied knowing he had run over Miss Poole and Miss Nicholls.

Cox said: "It felt like I hit something and I went into the air and came down and I was stuck.

"It was like it was stuck on top of something and I couldn't move forward. I thought I hit a bin or a bollard. I only realised I'd hit someone when I was arrested."

In his closing speech to the jury, Mr Gedge asked them to consider the context and speed of events that night.

"There is reason to believe that the defendant was terrified," he said.

"The context of what was happening around his car, taken with what had happened to his friend a few weeks before colours this whole case, and injects into the prosecution's case real streaks of doubt."