A drug addict who smashed a brick into the head of a disabled woman to steal her drugs has been jailed for two years and four months.

Craig Parmenter also held a broken bottle to her neck and threatened to kill her during the violent attack after turning up at her flat in the middle of the night.

And Judge Robert Pawson, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, asked why the 31-year-old had not been charged with robbery in relation to the incident.

“If you hit someone over the head with a brick then hold a broken bottle to their neck and say ‘I’ll stick this in your neck and kill you,’ then ‘Give me your crack’,” he said.

“I am just amazed in the circumstances that I am sentencing this man for theft and actual bodily harm. Most people would say it is a robbery.”

George Threlfall, prosecuting, said the victim had been a ‘recreational’ user of crack cocaine since last July and in November went to meet her dealer.

Other users, including the defendant, were also there and after she bought nine wraps for £60 he asked her if he could go to her flat to take the drugs.

She foolishly agreed to let the stranger come with her and he injected his heroin and crack at her Liden home, and she took some of hers.

Later that day he returned, as he had left some things behind, and told her he could get some pure cocaine for £60.

She went with him to do the deal and after giving him £50 towards it he disappeared, and she thought he had just fleeced her.

But in the early hours she was woken by another knock at the door and let him in, asking him for her money back.

Instead he approached from behind and hit her over the head with the brick so hard that it smashed on impact.

He then threatened her with the broken bottle and demanded she hand over some of the drugs he knew she had bought earlier and also give him some money.

After she produced some, he took them and them and almost immediately calmed down and told her ‘this isn’t me, call the police’, adding he wouldn’t hurt her.

When he was searched pieces of brick were found in his rucksack suggesting he had brought it with him.

Parmenter, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm, theft and two counts of possessing an offensive weapon.

Guy Wyatt, defending, said his client had been out of trouble for about 10 years but fell back into drug use shortly before the incidents.

He said “More by luck than judgement the injuries seem pretty modest.”

Jailing him the judge said “I have no doubt if you whack someone, a woman, in the head from behind with a brick such that the brick breaks, then there is a clear intent to cause more harm.”