Hartlepool man jailed for 14 YEARS after three-hour frenzied hammer attack on Good Samaritan

Kind-hearted Kelly Stokes had loaned money to Gareth Nott, 33, and allowed him to stay at her Hartlepool home over Christmas last year when he had nowhere to live.

She dozed off on a sofa in her flat on December 29 and she woke at 5am to find him straddling her and raining punches on her face and ranting something about text messages.

There were too many punches to count and then he head-butted her twice in the face, the court heard.

The attack became more terrifying as Stokes pulled on a pair of oven gloves and he picked up a claw hammer repeatedly smashing it down on her head.

The 33-year-old woman, who suffers from epilepsy, told police later: “He would not stop beating me with it.”

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield told Teesside Crown Court: “She became hysterical and was begging him to stop.

“He told her to stop struggling, and laughed and said he was going to kill her. But then he became tired and stopped.”

She slipped in and out of consciousness and her head was wet with blood. He put his gloved hands around her throat gripping her windpipe tightly. Then he forced her to get on her knees so that he could choke her.

Mr Hadfield said that she thought she was dying and she pleaded with Nott to ring for an ambulance, which he did giving a false name to the call handler.

Andrew Teate, defending, said Nott, who appeared over a videolink from Durham Prison, had taken a cocktail of drugs and he accepted that he faced a long sentence.

Judge Howard Crowson said: “It is clear that you intended to cause far greater harm than you eventually caused.

“The psychiatric report makes it very clear that you do pose a risk of very serious harm to the public.”

Nott, of Jackson Street, Hartlepool, was given a 14 and a half year extended sentence and an indefinite restraining order after he pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and also a burglary with intent on a house under renovation in May Street, Hartlepool, on November 21 last year.

He will serve a 10-year jail sentence with four and a half years extended licence on his release.