A PARANOID chip shop worker stabbed his father in the eye during a psychotic delusion.

Jin Lei believed the brain of his father Yong Qiang Lei had been transplanted.

He attacked what he believed was a robot with a meat cleaver and a knife at the family home in Longridge Avenue, Saltdean.

He stabbed his father and punctured his eyeball and was later found walking in a blood-stained shirt towards Brighton.

The 32-year-old also feared his own family were trying to poison him.

He has now been detained under the Mental Health Act after causing grievous bodily harm.

Lei appeared at Lewes Crown Court in a dark blazer and blue shirt where psychiatrists explained he has been suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Richard Barton, prosecuting, said Lei has been getting treatment at The Hellingly Centre since January after the incident in December last year.

He said Lei was trying to get in to the upstairs flat where his mother was, at which stage his father intervened.

During the struggle, his father was stabbed in the face, puncturing his eye ball.

He rushed into a neighbouring property to call the emergency services.

Mr Barton said: “Mr Lei was arrested three hours later, covered in blood.

“At that stage he was showing delusional beliefs about his parents.

“He believed brains could be transplanted.

“Then at interview he was asked about what happened, and said: ‘I just wonder if I should have finished what I tried to do’.”

Dr Roderick Lay, consultant forensic psychiatrist at the Hellingly Centre, gave evidence in court.

He said that Lei had been in contact with mental health services before the incident after he was found praying in the middle of a busy foyer at the NEC in Birmingham.

But he said Lei had not previously displayed signs of psychotic behaviour and that this was his first sign of him appearing unwell.

He said: “Mr Lei clearly has delusional beliefs about his father being replaced by a robot, and that his family were trying to poison him.

“He did not recognise that these beliefs were the early stage of his illness and psychosis.”

Lei was detained under section 37 of the Mental Health Act, and will remain at Hellingly in East Sussex.

Judge Charles Kemp also imposed a section 41 restriction to protect the public.

It means Lei cannot leave without the Health Secretary’s permission.