A MAN suffering from paranoid schizophrenia attacked a neighbour with a hammer, a court heard.

Alan Pennington, 59, of Davenport Avenue, Crewe, told police he had been 'only playing' after hitting his neighbour, Norman Bowen, 67, several times with the weapon.

He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing at Chester Crown Court to inflicting grievous bodily harm. When he reappeared for sentencing he was given a three-year Community Rehabilitation Order.

Nicholas Williams, prosecuting, said Pennington had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1980s but stopped taking his tablets last autumn when the incident occurred.

The court heard that on September 15 he had gone to a neighbouring flat, belonging to David Lewis, with a hammer and begun knocking on the door with it. One witness described him as 'going wild'.

Mr Bowen had approached Pennington and told him to stop.As he turned to go, Pennington hit him between two and eight times with the hammer on the back of the head.

Mr Bowen was taken to Leighton Hospital where it was established that he had only suffered superficial cuts to the head, although he suffered a broken wrist when he fell.

Pennington was said to have told him:

'I warned you, you're always causing trouble.' Later, he told the police that Mr Bowen had been pretending to stop him entering the flat so he 'bumped him on the head'.

Mr Williams said that after the assault Pennington had gone back to hammering on the door smashing a hole through it, later explaining that he had wanted to 'stop the noise coming from the flat'.

Pennington was inter-viewed briefly by the police before being taken to Leighton Hospital where he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and detained until his appearance in court. Brett Williamson, defending,

asked the Recorder of Chester, Judge Elgan Edwards, to consider applying a Community Rehabilitation Order to run in tandem to a Section 25 order made under the Mental Health Act, which would monitor Pennington's treatment and, if necessary, enforce it if he refused again to take his medication.

Dr Timothy Edwards, team leader of forensic psychiatry at Leighton Hospital, explained to the court that his team would visit Pennington seven days a week and that if he stopped taking the tablets it would be noticeable within a few days.

Judge Edwards agreed to the recommendation and sentenced Pennington to the three-year Community Rehabilitation Order, with a Section 25 order to be made by a doctor.

He told him: 'No-one wants to send you to prison because you are ill.

'But if it's between your interests and the safety of the public, the public come first.

'You can help yourself by taking your medication.'