A THUG who beat up a vulnerable neighbour after throwing a concrete slab through his living room widow and then burgled a nearby guest house was jailed for more than four years.

Cocaine addict Jay Probert shattered the glass of the flat of Simon Crick as he was sleeping in a chair before he assaulted him in a senseless “revenge” attack.

Prosecutor Ruth Smith told Cardiff Crown Court how the defendant was angered after the victim asked him to keep the noise down.

She said the complainant was alcohol dependant and suffered from agoraphobia as well as mental and physical disabilities.

Miss Smith added: “Mr Crick sustained a significant laceration to his left eye and a wound to his head.”

She said that the 23-year-old Probert had used a large piece of concrete paving to smash the window which was found covered in blood.

Just after the attack on Mr Crick, during which a demand for his wallet was made, the defendant then carried out a burglary at the guest house.

Clothes worth £220 and a £20 note were stolen in the raid.

Miss Smith said Probert later telephoned police and handed himself in.

The Recorder of Cardiff, Judge Eleri Rees, heard how he had 17 previous convictions for 28 offences – including three for burglary – and that he had been released from prison on licence at the time.

The defendant admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, causing £2,000 of criminal damage and burglary.

Kathryn Lane, mitigating, asked the judge to take into account Probert’s early guilty pleas.

She said: “He has been addicted to class A drugs from his early teenage years. He told me, ‘I can’t stop taking cocaine. It has taken over my life.’”

Miss Lane added he was so badly hooked that he has nearly overdosed on more than one occasion.

She said that he has registered on a programme at Parc Prison to battle his drug addiction.

Miss Lane told the court how Probert, of Snowden Court, Caerphilly, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after being the victim of a petrol bomb attack when he was seven-years-old.

Judge Rees told him he had carried out an “appalling” attack on Mr Crick and jailed him for a total of four years and four months.