A 26-YEAR-OLD schizophrenic who viciously stabbed a man in the neck as he walked in the street has been ordered to be detained under the Mental Health Act.

Colin Jewsbury lunged at 23-year-old Paul Bains with the 8in bladed kitchen knife after trying to strike up a conversation in Gravesend.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how Mr Bains fought frantically with Jewsbury, sustaining other cuts to his hand, arm and leg. He later required plastic surgery to a severed tendon in his right hand and cuts between his thumb and index finger which had damaged nerves.

Prosecutor Peter Alcock said there was no motive for the brutal attack in May last year and the two men had never met before.

But two weeks earlier Jewsbury had told a cousin that he felt like killing himself or “going out and stabbing someone”.

Mr Bains first saw Jewsbury running with his dog in St Benedict’s Avenue, Gravesend. Jewsbury, the court heard, spoke briefly to Mr Bains before walking off.

However, he then followed Mr Bains into Valley Drive and along Old Road East.

At the junction with Pine Avenue, Jewsbury again approached Mr Bains, asking him if he knew “Hayley and Sarah”.

Mr Alcock told the court: “Mr Bains said he didn’t and at that point a large kitchen knife with an 8in blade was taken from the defendant’s pocket and he attacked the victim with it.

“Mr Bains described it as lasting three to four minutes. The defendant held the knife up and then lunged towards Mr Bains. He grabbed the knife but couldn’t hold on. The defendant raised the knife again over his shoulder and brought it down in a hacking manner towards Mr Bains’s head but causing the wound to his neck.

“Mr Bains grabbed the knife again and they then struggled standing up and on the floor, with the defendant on top of Mr Bains. During that time there was a number of lunges with the knife.”

Mr Bains eventually managed to push Jewsbury away, whom he later described graphically to the police as having “eyes like little black dots”. Jewsbury then fled and was arrested the following day after police received reports of a man running around in St Benedict’s Avenue with a piece of wood.

At his home police found a large kitchen knife and clothing spotted with Mr Bains’s blood. Jewsbury was also picked out of an identity parade. However, he denied the stabbing, saying he had been in his flat in St Benedict’s Avenue all night.

Mr Bains, the court heard, suffered a 10cm cut to his neck, as well as numerous other lacerations. One to his right hand had completely severed a tendon.

Julian Dale, defending, said Jewsbury, who was flanked in the dock by four hospital staff, had been seen by numerous psychiatrists. They had concluded that Jewsbury, who admitted wounding Mr Bains with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia.

“What happened was an appalling incident,” said Mr Dale. “He is clearly unwell.”

Judge Anthony Balston ordered that Jewsbury be detained under the Mental Health Act in a medium secure hospital until the authorities decide he is fit for release.