OUSTED MP Gordon Prentice has described the moment he was confronted by a hammer-wielding man at his Barnoldswick home.

The former Pendle MP said he had been compelled to describe the incident in his blog after a 21-year-old woman, of East Ham, appeared in court on Monday accused of attempting to kill her MP, Labour's Stephen Timms, by stabbing him in the stomach.

In his blog, Mr Prentice says the incident happened at his Barnoldswick home at around 5pm on a Sunday afternoon in August 1998.

He describes seeing a man in his early 30s outside his dining room window, who then unleashed a ‘hellish battering’ on his kitchen door.

He writes: “I open the door and nothing prepares me for what I see directly in front of me.

“A young man with a contorted angry face is holding a huge sledgehammer aloft, ready to bring it down on top of my head.

“My mind races. I have never seen this man in my life before. I have a second before I meet my maker.”

Mr Prentice describes calming the man down by inviting him inside and speaking to him for 45 minutes about his problems, which included being sacked from his job, evicted and not being able to get help from social security.

He writes: “He has a million problems. He is raging at the world and looking for someone to blame. And he thinks of me.”

Following the incident, Mr Prentice said he continued to hold regular constituency surgeries.