A MAN was jailed for five years for a knife attack on a teenage student in a house in Skelton that left him permanently scarred and with nightmares.

Teesside Crown Court was told that the victim had been watching a boxing match on TV at his home in Skelton, east Cleveland, with 25-year-old Alexander Moore on Saturday June 10.

Moore suddenly became violent and he attacked him with a kitchen knife, stabbing him several times in the head.

The student said in an impact statement that after a four-hour operation at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, he was left so badly scarred that he hid himself away at home.

A psychiatrist said that Moore, who was addicted to cannabis, had probably suffered a paranoid psychosis which led him to believe that he was being held against his will or he was the subject of an attack.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, said that it was a dreadful offence.

Moore, from Dixon Street in Skelton, wept as he appeared over a live videolink from Durham Prison.

He was jailed for five years and two months after the pleaded guilty to wounding with intent and criminal damage to a window at the student's house.