A man who shaved his friend's body hair with a razor blade and plucked his eyelashes with pliers has been jailed for four years.

Gabe Logan, 26, also rubbed gritty soap into Reginald Whitehouse's legs.

Hove Crown Court heard yesterday Logan has a severe personality disorder, which causes him to carry out illogical acts of cruelty to others.

But psychiatrists who examined him found he was not suffering from any kind of mental illness for which he could be hospitalised.

Michael Warren, prosecuting, said Logan befriended Mr Whitehouse, 49, in Birmingham when they were both receiving hospital treatment.

Witnesses told how Logan had punched Mr Whitehouse and pulled his hair when he tried to leave a guesthouse they were staying at in St George's Terrace, Brighton.

When the victim managed to escape and flee back to Birmingham, the defendant tracked him down.

Mr Warren said Logan shaved off Mr Whitehouse's hair and eyebrows in a toilet cubicle on a train back to Brighton.

A month later he shaved all Mr Whitehouse's body hair against his will at the guesthouse.

He shaved off some of Mr Whitehouse's eyelashes with a razor and used pliers to pluck out others.

Jeffrey Lamb, defending, said: "Mr Logan understands he needs proper help and treatment."

Logan pleaded guilty to causing Mr Whitehouse actual bodily harm and to harassing him over the course of six months.

Logan was also made the subject of a harassment order preventing him from having any contact with Mr Whitehouse for five years.