A THUG in a drug induced psychotic rage attacked a man on his doorstep after wrongly accusing him of being a paedophile.

In the middle of the night Jonathon Williams slashed the man's car tyres and smashed the vehicle's window before later returning to the street, waking his victim and beating him with wooden bats.

At Bolton Crown Court 29-year-old Williams was jailed for two years after admitting causing grievous bodily harm, possessing offensive weapons and criminal damage.

"You seem to have been motivated by a sense of grievance or vengeance against the complainant, accusing him of having done wrong," Judge Timothy Stead told him.

"There is no evidence he had done anything wrong. Whether it was a product of your drug abuse or not which caused you to think in that way, I do not know."

Andrew MacKintosh, prosecuting, told how the victim had known Williams for about five years and just after midnight on May 10 a neighbour informed him that his car, parked outside his terraced home in Deane, had been damaged.

Williams was seen on CCTV committing the offence before walking off.

The victim went back to bed but at 1.30am Williams returned.

"The complainant heard banging at his door," said Mr MacKintosh.

"He got out of bed, went outside in his shorts and saw the defendant in the street.

"The defendant was holding two bats in his hands and shouting, accusing him of taking a 13-year-old boy to the cinema and calling him a paedophile."

After kicking and striking the front door with the bats Williams started walking off, but then turned back and ran back toward his victim, swinging the weapons.

In his doorway the man was smashed over the head with a bat, causing a one inch cut and struck on the arm.

When police later traced Williams he told them: "I know why you're here. I did it, arrest me. I split his head and told him to confess."

David Morton, defending, told the court that parcel delivery company worker Williams, of Oakford Walk, Bolton, needs help rather than prison.

"He has had a very sad history from a young age," he said, adding that two of his children have died and his wife has now left him, taking his son with her.

"When struggling he resorted, wrongly, to taking barbiturates," said Mr Morton.

"This is a man who behaved outrageously that night. He wasn't thinking, as is apparent from the conclusions of the psychiatric report, and possibly suffering from psychosis."