A SPOOKY night out took a nasty turn last week when a St Albans teenager and her friends were chased by a tearaway tractor.

Vicky Long, 19, who lives in the Cottonmill area, and her boyfriend Michael were two of six friends who embarked on a road trip to an apparently haunted church in Ware - Cold Christmas Church on Cold Christmas Lane - on Sunday evening.

The two cars were travelling in convoy along Cold Christmas Lane when a tractor coming the other way blocked their path. Intending to let the tractor pass, the drivers of both cars - including Ricky Dawson, who was in the same car as Vicky - both attempted to pull into lay-bys, but were stopped in their tracks when the tractor started accelerating.

Vicky, who was sitting in the back with Michael, said that she couldn’t believe her eyes: “We were all so shocked when the tractor started ramming both the car I was in and my friend’s car.

“The others escaped with only a smashed passenger window, but we weren’t so lucky - the tractor rammed into the back of Ricky’s car, pushing us into a neighbouring field.”

Vicky, an Oaklands College beauty therapy student, said that Ricky carried on driving along the pitch-black fields for a bit before everyone abandoned the car and ran away in an attempt to escape the tractor.

But to their amazement, the tractor then drove into the back of the car again with so much force that the boot bent and crumpled inwards.

Vicky said that she was scared for her life: “We must have run for three or four miles non-stop and we were too scared to go up to one of the houses in case it belonged to whoever was driving the tractor, I was on the phone to the police while we were running and I remember being terrified of using it in case the tractor driver saw the light.”

Vicky and her friends eventually came to rest at Fanhams Hall Hotel on Fanham Hall Road just after 9.30pm, where they were met by police officers. Vicky, who had to go to hospital yesterday, September 7, because of possible whip lash, said that Ricky’s car was a write-off as a result of the accident.

She added: “Unfortunately the police weren’t very sympathetic that night - perhaps they just didn’t believe us. But nearly being run over by a tractor is a terrifying experience and I want to warn everyone about Cold Christmas Lane and whoever was driving that tractor.

“A lot of friends have said that people around that area really don’t like strangers driving down the lane and I can’t help thinking that whoever rammed us was from around those parts.”

A police spokesperson said that an investigation into the incident was ongoing.