RELATIVES of a 76-year-old cancer victim have told of their outrage after he was attacked by a fellow patient on a ward at Durham's new multi-million pound hospital.

Former pitman Cuthbert Nixon was beaten and dragged to the floor by a fellow patient suffering from senile dementia in the early hours.

His family have criticised the hospital for not telling them of the incident and not supervising the ward properly, but stressed they did not blame the dementia victim.

Mr Nixon, of Cedar Crescent in Burnopfield near Stanley, County Durham, suffers from stomach cancer.

He was attacked at about 1am on Sunday at a four-bedroom unit at the new University Hospital of North Durham, and was struck in the stomach and dragged to the floor. His attacker also attempted to throttle him. Mr Nixon's grandson, Mark New, of Delves Lane, near Consett, said Mr Nixon had been deeply shocked by the attack.

He added: "He's been unable to sleep and has had to take sleeping tablets. We know it's not really the other patient's fault but we want to know what he was doing unsupervised in the same small unit as my granddad in the first place.

"The hospital did not even have the decency to call us. The first we heard was when we visited him at 8pm the next day. My granddad is really upset and we're all very annoyed as you can imagine."

Director of nursing for the North Durham NHS Trust Margaret Best apologised to the family and said that she would be making inquiries as to why they were not told. But she strongly defended the actions of her staff who dealt with the incident on the night.

She said: "I can confirm the incident took place and it is appalling that the family were not told that this had occurred the following day. I'm sorry for that and I'm sorry that the incident took place at all.

"But I would stress that the man who attacked Mr Nixon had received appropriate medication and after the incident was supervised all night. My staff coped very well with the situation."

Updated: 16.45 Thursday, May 10