A LONER with a fixation for the Yorkshire Ripper tried to kill a prostitute as he set off on a mission to emulate his hero.

The Northern Echo can reveal that obsessed David Parsons battered the call girl with a hammer in a brutal attack at his home.

His murderous attack ended only when he got spooked by her screams and fled from his flat in Middlesbrough, and gave himself up.

The 21-year-old later calmly told police in an astonishingly frank interview: "If she had kept quiet, I would have killed her."

Parsons trawled the internet looking for a victim and found the £330-a-night escort on a specialist website, sources revealed.

He booked her and waited with the weapon tucked into the back of his trousers - having run through in his mind what he would do.

She was left with serious head injuries after being hit repeatedly before she bravely fought back and Parsons ran from the flat.

After his arrest, the odd-ball told cops he was worried that neighbours might hear her screams - and made his Ripper confession.

He said he was "fascinated" with the notorious serial killer and wanted to carry out copy-cat slayings after "hearing voices".

A neighbour in Brackenfield Court, Eston, described Parsons as "a weirdo" and said he would never make eye-contact with anyone.

"He walked around with his head down," he said. "We heard he'd been on the internet looking for the best way to kill with a hammer."

And Parsons' mother, Shirley Crane, from nearby Grangetown, said: "I suppose I've just got to live with what he's done."

He will be sentenced today at Teesside Crown Court after earlier pleading guilty to the attempted murder of the woman in June.

It is understood Parsons started hearing voices in his head after his father died when he was 14 - initially telling him to self-harm.

In the months before the hammer attack, they had been urging him to hurt somebody or kill somebody, he told police.

He said he had not told anyone about the orders, but used to burn himself with a lighter, and also starve himself.

Weeks before luring the escort to his ground-floor flat, he bought a claw hammer with the sole intention of hurting someone.

He said he decided this was his preferred method of killing as he was fascinated with Peter Sutcliffe and his weapon was a hammer.

Parsons said he was fascinated with his life and he chose a prostitute because it was easy to get them to his dingy home.

He used his mobile phone to search the internet and found a website, looked at photographs of hookers and chose his victim.

Sources say he sent a text message to a number listed, and after a series of questions and replies, booked the woman.

He is thought to have snapped when she spent more time looking at her mobile than talking to him after she arrived.

Using both hands to hold the weapon, he struck her four to five times around the head as she sat on a sofa opposite him.

The screaming victim fought back, and wrestled the hammer from him, so he kicked her in the face and grabbed it again.

He battered her twice more as she yelled for help, kicked her again several times then ran to Eston Square, and rang the police.

Parsons described the incident was "an out-of-body experience that made me feel powerful and good".

He told detectives he only stopped hitting her because she was screaming, and if she had been quiet he would have killed her.