A MAN who brutally hacked at his naked victim with a machete and fractured his skull has been jailed for 15 years.

Michael Herron, 26, walked into the victim’s house after a long-running family feud erupted into "devastating and savage" violence, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The 32-year-old victim was in the bath with his partner, 30, when Herron burst in.

Two children, aged 11 and nine, were in a room nearby.

Ross Patterson, 23, of Opal Avenue, Ferryhill, who helped plan the attack and stood on the stairs laughing throughout it, was jailed for 13-and-a-half years.

Prosecutor Adrian Dent told the court: “The men entered the house through the front door. The first blow that Herron delivered was to the head.

“The victim managed to push Herron out the bathroom and shut the door but he hacked away at the door with the machete.

“It was a terrifying experience. It seems to have been a serious attack.”

The jury heard that the victim jumped out of a bathroom window semi-naked to escape his attackers.

His partner was then confronted by Herron who cut her with a machete and pushed her over in front of the children.

Shaun Dryden, mitigating for Herron, said: “As he was convicted by a jury and does not believe he is guilty there is very little I can put forward.”

Robin Denny, for Patterson, said: “He accepts entirely he is likely to receive a lengthy custodial sentence.

“There is no suggestion that he was ever involved in violence previously.”

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, QC, described the two men as “cowardly”.

He said: “It was cowardly because you knew that they would be at home and vulnerable. It was cowardly because they were unprepared and unable to defend themselves.

“You may forget in time what you did to them. They may never forget.”

Both men were found guilty of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Herron, of Dean Road, Ferryhill, was also sentenced for actual bodily harm.

A third man, Warren Oughton, 23, who was thought to have acted as a look-out, was cleared of the same charges by a jury at the end of a three-week trial.

The female victim said in a statement: “Our lives have changed completely.

“All I could hear were my eldest son’s screams.

“I do not care if they are sorry or not. We had to move.

"I do not tell people where my house is and we have police panic buttons in our home to make our children feel safer.

“The children and I are all mentally and emotionally scarred.”