A gardener has taken to sleeping in his van after neighbours got fed up of listening to the Tourette's sufferer's late-night outbursts.

Nick Bingham, of Cowell Road in Haywards Heath, was even threatened with an Antisocial Behaviour Order (Asbo) after waking up the neighbourhood with shouts of obscenities in the early hours.

The 35-year-old, who recently moved to the road, said: "I have never encountered as much hostility as I'm getting at my new home. It's unbelievable.

"People even shout abuse across the garden fence at me and just generally make my life a misery."

He says the stress of the complaints has made his condition worse.

Former neighbour Graham Henderson said: "At first it wasn't so bad and neighbours thought it was funny.

"But after a while it just got a bit much, especially if you had young children.

"I was just glad that I was moving anyway. I feel sorry for him but you have to understand it is not pleasant being woken up at 3am by someone shouting obscenities."

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "It got to a stage where we couldn't sleep."

Mr Bingham had saved up £250,000 to buy his terrace home but now retires to his van at bed time.

He has suffered from Tourette's since he was six-years-old.

The condition started with him shouting obscenities while in church, or sitting at the dinner table with his parents.

He said: "When I turned nine I started making a funny 'ni-ni-ni' noise and would wiggle my fingers under my chin as I did it. Two years later I began to shake my head uncontrollably."

As he entered his teens the condition worsened and he endured years of bullying.

Doctors eventually diagnosed him when he was 18.

He plans to travel to Spain where doctors have successfully operated on Tourette's patients.