A GARDENER who stabbed a deaf customer aged 83 in the chest has been jailed for 17 years.

Scott Waters, 38, knifed his victim as she lay in her own bed after targeting her while high on drink and drugs.

The defendant had broken into her Newbridge home during the early hours of the morning of March 2, prosecutor James Wilson said.

The victim telephoned a neighbour and told him: "Help, I have been beaten up, Scott's beaten me up." 

When the neighbour arrived at her home she was crying hysterically and she told him she thought she was dreaming at first and that someone was hitting her chest.

As she was saying this she had both her hands clasped together and she would raise them up and then bring them in a downward direction, Mr Wilson said.

The victim was bleeding and the neighbour could see that there was blood running down her pyjama bottom leg.

Police recovered a cutlery knife with a black square handle and a silver coloured blade that was taken from the victim’s own kitchen.

The homeless Waters was initially charged with attempted murder.

He later admitted wounding with intent.

Cardiff Crown Court heard it remains a mystery as to why Waters carried out the crime.

The victim spent nearly a month in hospital.

Judge Shomon Khan sentenced the defendant to a 12-year custodial term plus an extended licence period of five years.

He told him: "What you did was horrifying and inhumane.

“Nobody understands how could you act in that way.”

Waters, of no fixed abode, Newbridge, was also made the subject of an indefinite restraining order not to contact his victim.

He will have to pay a victim surcharge following his release from jail.