A JEALOUS man who attacked another with a hammer has been jailed for 18 months.

David Shannon, 37 of Atherton Road, Hindley, thought Andrea Miller, with whom he had an on-off relationship for four years, was still his girlfriend until her mother rang one night because she had not come home.

Two days earlier he had met a man called Paul Clark who had called at his home with a friend to see Andrea and everything seemed fine. However when her mother rang in the early hours of the morning on February 7 he suspected that she was with Mr Clark.

He went round to his home in Worsley Hall and knocked on the front window.

Mr Clark invited him in and Shannon asked what he was doing with his girlfriend. Mr Clark was sitting on the settee and Shannon stood over him and suddenly swung a hammer at the back of his head, said Miss Zoe Nield, prosecuting at Liverpool Crown Court.

The victim fled upstairs as Shannon invited him outside "to fight like a man" but Miss Miller intervened and Shannon left. Police and ambulance and Mr Clark was taken to Wigan Royal Infirmary where two stitches were put in a two centimetre laceration.

Shannon, an unemployed joiner, pleaded guilty to wounding.

Jailing him for 18 months Judge Denis Clark said he was fortunate he was not facing a murder charge.

"It was a cowardly and potentially a very dangerous thing to do," he said.

Miss Zillah Williams, defending, told Liverpool Crown Court: "Although Andrea Miller may have told police their relationship was over that was far from the impression David Shannon had."

"He was very much in love with her. He did not know she was having a relationship with another man until her mother rang and "the penny dropped.

"He had something to drink and was not thinking straight when he took the weapon round to Paul Clark's address. He got there and his suspicions were confirmed. They were partially dressed and he was devastated. It does not excuse what he did but it explains it."