A HOMELESS man taken in as a lodger by a wheelchair-bound multiple sclerosis sufferer battered him to death on the day he moved in.

Keith Jones, who suffers from an anti-social behaviour disorder, killed Robert Henry Carter in a drunken rage at Mr Carter's home in Sandmoor Road, New Marske, east Cleveland, on January 4.

The 33-year-old, a habitual drinker who has been in and out of prison, admits Mr Carter's manslaughter, but denies murdering him.

Teesside Crown Court heard the father-of-five had been told by his mother, Thelma Jones, a former care worker who occasionally looked after Mr Carter, 63, that he was seeking a lodger and she passed his telephone number to her son.

While drunk, Jones visited Mr Carter at his home, where he attacked him in the dining room and then in the downstairs toilet, using a table leg and one of Mr Carter's walking crutches.

After the killing, he took a taxi to the Royal public house, on the seafront in nearby Redcar, wearing a white T-shirt spattered with blood. He continued drinking before returning to the house and going to bed.

Jeremy Richardson QC, prosecuting, said Mr Carter's body was found in the bathroom by his son after a care worker failed to gain entry to the house the next morning.

The police were called and Jones was discovered asleep in an upstairs bedroom. He told officers: "Something happened yesterday."

Mr Richardson told the court: "When told by his mother of the chance of staying as a lodger at the deceased's home, he went around there and consumed more alcohol. Something angered the defendant and he deliberately and brutally attacked the deceased.

"The defendant suffers from an abnormality of the mind but that disorder has nothing to do with what he did. It certainly did not substantially impair his responsibility for what he did that night."

The jury was told Jones had been in prison for attacking his mother and in 2001, she gained an injunction against him to stop him contacting her.

They also heard he was taken into care when he began to misbehave aged 15 and had once assaulted a teacher, as well as stealing a school bus.

Mr Richardson told the court there was no doubt that Jones attacked his victim but it was for the jury to decide whether at the time of the killing he was suffering from an abnormality of the mind that meant his responsibility diminished from murder to manslaughter.

The trial continues.