A racist thug who hurled abuse at a neighbour and broke his arm with a baseball bat faces a prison term.

Michael Matschy, 34, attacked Harold New in Steyning Crescent, Storrington, and was yesterday convicted of racially-aggravated assault.

The judge, Recorder Nicholas Wood, ordered pre-sentence reports and told him: "I am giving no indication of any other possibility of sentence than custody."

Matschy had already admitted assaulting Mr New during the bust-up on May 4 over the sale of a car but denied racially abusing him.

Throughout the two-day hearing at Hove Crown Court, the defendant had insisted he was not racist.

But he even used a racist word in front of the jury when he was being cross-examined.

The jury of seven women and five men heard, after returning a unanimous guilty verdict, that Matschy had received a three-month sentence in a detention centre for racial abuse in 1977.

He also has previous convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm, criminal damage and breach of the peace and illegal possession of firearms. He had also been cautioned for common assault this year.

Jurors heard that the relationship between Matschy and Mr New had become acrimonious after the defendant sold his neighbour a car and a row broke out over payment.