A 22-YEAR-OLD man has been jailed for five years for hitting a student 16 times on the head with a hammer in a vicious street attack.

Taiyub Imran was yesterday found guilty of wounding Rehan Ajmal with intent to do him grievous bodily harm in Manningham Lane, Bradford, on June 28, 2014.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court heard that Imran, of Spring Bank Place, Manningham, pulled the hammer out of his sleeve and “whacked and whacked” Mr Ajmal 16 times.

Mr Ajmal suffered severe head injuries and defensive wounds to his hands after crouching down to protect his head.

After the attack, Imran said: “Lucky I don’t do more damage,”

Mr Ajmal told the court Imran, who was a stranger to him, accused him of staring at him. He threatened him and produced the hammer.

The men went off separately down Manningham Lane but bumped into one another round a corner.

Mr Ajmal was turning to walk away when he was attacked.

He told the jury: “I felt five or six blows, all of a sudden. I was terrified. I started to bleed profusely. All the blows were to the back of my head. They were vicious and violent and very hard, designed to cause serious harm.”

Kate Batty, for the prosecution, accused Imran of acting “The big ‘I am’,” in his neighbourhood, walking the streets and asking people: “What are you staring at?”

After the verdict, John Boumphrey, Imran’s barrister, said there may have been some element of provocation.

“There was an unwise coming together of these two people, under the circumstances,” he said.

Imran had mental health problems and learning difficulties.

His one previous conviction was when he robbed a barber’s shop with an accomplice when he was a youth.

He was under the care of a psychiatrist and would find custody particularly difficult.

“There is no continuing mental disorder but there is some learning disability,” Mr Boumphrey said.

The judge, Recorder Duncan Smith, said the evidence against Imran was overwhelming.

“You are immature and were only 20 when it happened and I accept that you have learning difficulties,” he told him.

Imran had not been assessed as a danger to the public and would be released from prison when he had served half his sentence, Recorder Smith said.