A 60-YEAR-OLD who attacked a guest with a pickaxe handle has been jailed for 15 months.

Peter Davy, pictured, had been drinking when he bashed Steven Hadert three times after he returned to his front door despite being asked to leave.

Davy raced out of his house in Down Terrace, Brighton, and hit the 58-year-old on his arm and head, on February 18 last year.

Summing up to jurors at Hove Crown Court, Judge David Rennie said: “The time came when the defendant wanted Mr Hadert to leave, and told him so.

“There is a dispute as to just how unpleasant or obnoxious he had been.

“What is certain is that he was asked to leave and did leave and in due course came back.

“He came back to the house and was throwing a stone or stones at the bedroom window.”

“Then we come to the real issue in the case which is what actually happened.

“Mr Hadert says the defendant came running at him with the pickaxe handle.”

Judge Rennie jailed Davy straight after hearing the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict on the charge of grievous bodily harm.

He rejected defence pleas to suspend Davy’s sentence, saying: “A man comes out of a house with a baseball bat or a pickaxe – and I am absolutely convinced that he did – and proceeds to strike his victim three times. That does not call for a suspended sentence.”

Addressing Davy, he added: “I have no doubt that on that night Steven Hadert was being obnoxious, no doubt that you were justified in getting him to leave.

“But when he came back and was making a nuisance of himself, the appropriate way of dealing with it was not as you did to open the door, arm yourself with a pick axe handle and race out and hit him three times.”

Davy denied one count of grievous bodily harm, saying he had threatened Mr Hadert, but had not hit him.

He claimed Mr Hadert must have injured his arm while trying to force his way into the door and may have fallen and hurt his head.

Davy was living a “respectable life”, the court heard in mitigation, and letters in his support were handed to the judge.