A HEROIN addict who left a man paralysed after attacking him with a hammer has been jailed indefinitely.

Kelvin James Llewellyn beat Peter Harrison across the head with the weapon when their paths crossed in a Bolton shop doorway in April.

Mr Harrison, aged 45, is in a hospital ward, being fed through a tube and unable to speak, almost five months after the horrific attack.

Sentencing Llewellyn at Bolton Crown Court, Judge Roger Warnock said yesterday: "You have completely destroyed the life of a 45-year-old man who will need care for the rest of his life.

"The medical reports I have seen make chilling reading."

Llewellyn, who was already the subject of an anti-social behaviour order for a string of attempted robberies, is thought to be the first person in Bolton to have been sentenced under new guidelines introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

He will be allowed to apply for parole in five-and-a-half years but could be ordered to stay in prison for the rest of his life if he is deemed to pose a threat to the public.

Llewellyn, aged 22, of Brandwood Street, Deane, had been seen behaving strangely outside his sister's house with a hammer the morning of the attack on April 8, said Alaric Bassano, prosecuting.

Mr Harrison, of Grisdale Road, Deane, had gone to the Co-Op store in St Helens Road, Daubhill, at 9am that morning and passed Llewellyn in the shop doorway.

Llewellyn asked Mr Harrison "what he was looking at" before hitting him once with the hammer on the head without warning.

Mr Harrison, who was with a friend at the time, managed to stagger several hundred yards to Southwell Close, Halliwell, before collapsing.

He fell into a coma at the Royal Bolton Hospital and regained consciousness a month later. He remains paralysed down one side, said Mr Bassano.

"The medical reports show Mr Harrison was hit only once but with considerable and devastating force," he added.

Llewellyn was also sentenced for a total of three years for a burglary at Bolton College in March and for breaching his ASBO.

David Toal, defending, said Llewellyn had been battling a heroin habit since he was 13 and his previous offences had been motivated by his addiction.

"He was not of a sane and rational mind when this attack took place and he is shocked and ashamed by what happened on that day," said Mr Toal.