A man who hit a GP over the head with a hammer in a "brutal and terrifying attack" was today jailed for five years.

Roy Morter, 57, who believed there was a conspiracy against him by the medical profession, said he only wanted to frighten GP Dr Michael Thompson.

Dr Thompson, who works at Portslade Health Centre, was struck three times on the back of the head.

As he tried to escape, the two men grappled on the landing and both fell down the stairs.

Sentencing Morter today, Recorder Nicholas Ainley said he could easily have killed the doctor.

Morter, of Erroll Road, Hove, denied wounding the doctor during a visit to his flat in December last year but was convicted by a jury after a two day trial at Hove Crown Court in May.

Morter told the jury he had suffered a decade of medical mistakes and had been passed from one GP to another without satisfactory diagnosis.

He said when the doctor arrived at his flat he got the impression the GP was laughing and sneering at him.

He said: "He was laughing and saying things in a sneery way.

"I walked out of the room and I picked up a hammer.

"I struck out at his briefcase a few times to frighten him.

"From the moment I hit his briefcase it is a bit of a blur.

"He was the straw that broke the camel's back.

"I just lost it."

During the trial the jury heard Morter, who had no previous convictions, had become so frustrated after ten years of failing to get the medical treatment he felt he needed.

John Marsden-Lynch defending, said Morter had been in custody since the attack and had been voluntarily taking anti-psychotic medication for the past three months.

He said: "It was quite clear at the time he was mentally disordered. He believed there was a conspiracy to deprive him of proper medical treatment, that included doctors, dentists and the whole medical profession."

Recorder Nicholas Ainley, sentencing Morter today at Lewes Crown Court, told him he was a danger to medical practitioners.

He said: "I consider you are a real and unpredictable danger to the public in general and medical practitioners in particular.

"This was a brutal and terrifying attack on a doctor who had only come around to help you.

"You attacked him at a time when he was effectively trapped in your house.

"He had never done you any harm.

"You had never met him before.

"You could so easily have killed him."