A FAMILY was forced to move out of their home after their teenage son was attacked with a samurai sword.

Jon Payne lived on the Greenstead estate in Colchester with his wife and son Toby, 19, at the time of the attack.

Ross Barnham, 18, pleaded guilty to hitting Toby over the head with the ornamental sword and on Tuesday was sentenced to three years in a young offenders’ institute.

Speaking for the first time since the ordeal, Jon Payne recalled: “It all started off with kids running through communal corridors, jumping into secure car parks and causing trouble.

“Toby and I went to ask them to keep it down and I got abuse hurled at me. We decided to walk away and these youths followed us down Conifer Close, before they surrounded us. They had weapons and they were going to use them.”

The 40-year-old and his son feared for their safety, and Toby quickly rang the police.

“He was actually on the phone when he got hit over the head with the sword,” Mr Payne explained.

“He touched his head and came away with a hand full of blood.

“It sliced through to the skull, and at the bottom of the cut there was a chipped bone that left a puncture in the skull. That could have got infected and caused brain damage. We were lucky the hospital managed to stop any secondary infection.”

And if Barnham had hit the father it could have killed him.

“I have a very low blood count of white cells,” Mr Payne explained. “It means it’s difficult to stop me bleeding. If he had hit me I would never have made it to the hospital.”

Toby never returned to his parents’ home on the Greenstead estate because he felt so unsafe and Mr and Mrs Payne have also been forced to move.

Mr Payne explained: “We had abuse thrown at us and our windows smashed. We didn’t feel safe at all. The council put us on their emergency housing list and moved us out of the area.

“My wife still has panic attacks everytime we go into Colchester town centre. She won’t go in alone anymore.”

Mr Payne said he was disgusted at the three-year sentence imposed on Barnham, claiming his family’s lives have been ruined while the teenager could be out of prison in just over a year.

He said: “Nobody had the courtesy to tell us about the sentence.

“I read about it in the paper. The sentence is a joke, it is disgusting.”

Katherine Pinato, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “In this instance we have sent several letters to Mr Payne, the most recent on July 2, 2009, keeping him fully up to date with proceedings.

“We also offered Mr Payne the opportunity to attend court, but we did not hear back from him.

“We cannot comment specifically on the length of the sentence, but we are pleased with the positive outcome of this case and we hope it will assist Mr Payne in moving forward with his life.”