A MAN smashed a hammer into a prostitute's face in revenge for 'catching' gonorrhoea from her, a court heard.

Michael Curry, 50, of Ashworth Street, Preston, was this week beginning a two-and-a-half-year jail term after a jury at Liverpool Crown Court convicted him of unlawful wounding.

Curry swung a claw hammer at the back of Nicola Wolstenholme's head and into her cheekbone during the attack in his car on May 13 this year after he paid her £10 for sexual favours.

Curry suspected Miss Wolstenholme had infected him with the disease during a previous encounter.

Mr Justice Penry-Davey said he had sentenced Curry on the basis he never intended to cause serious bodily harm. Curry was also cleared of attempted murder and wounding with intent.

Following the trial the court heard that Curry had 46 other convictions including the rape of a Preston woman in 1987, for which he served a five-year jail term.

The pair had known each other for six years since Miss Wolstenholme dated Curry's son. Curry later got to know her as a customer.

The court heard that Miss Wolstenholme, 26, and a friend noticed Curry's white Nissan Sunnyat the end of Mercer Street, Preston, around 9.30pm. Curry offered her money for sexual favours, but when the couple became intimate, Curry begin strangling her. Miss Wolstenholme said he let go and said he was sorry. "I told him he was scaring me but he said he wasn't," said Miss Wolstenholme. "I started crying. He then let go and I started crying even more because I was scared. He said he was sorry.

"Then there was something in my hair like my skull had been smashed open. Then he hit me again around the same area with the claw hammer."

She said she got away but was hit on the back of her head with a hammer; she fell and he began strangling her again, and hit her on the left cheekbone with a hammer.

Curry denied attacking her in revenge and claimed the hammer attack never happened.