THREE thugs were locked up yesterday for a revenge attack on a man who was bludgeoned with baseball bats and slashed with a knife on his doorstep.

Stuart West recruited two friends to carry out the Sunday afternoon beating to his mother’s former partner, Ronald Proctor, at his home in Hartlepool.

West, 23, was jailed for a total of two years – including six months from a suspended sentence imposed only a month before the attack for an affray.

Mark Jenkins, 20, and Paul Armstrong, 25, who, like West have previous convictions for violence, were each jailed for 15 months.

Teesside Crown Court heard that Mr Proctor telephoned West and asked to see him, but he hatched a plot with his friends to go mob-handed and armed.

West went in first with a metal baseball bat inside his jacket, and after the pair started fighting, he began hitting Mr Proctor with it.

Clodagh Maguire, prosecuting, said Mr Proctor, 40, managed to push his attacker to the door, but was set upon by the others.

Jenkins attacked Mr Proctor with another baseball bat while Armstrong wildly slashed out with the knife as their victim was hit repeatedly.

The court heard that the three booked a taxi from Jenkins’ home.

One boasted to the driver on the way: “I’m going to batter somebody.”

When they arrived outside Mr Proctor’s home, in Eton Street, West told the driver to park behind a nearby skip because they would not be long.

The driver fled the scene and radioed his control room after he heard screams from the house and saw Mr Proctor being beaten in the street.

Police later found two baseball bats hidden behind a fridge in West’s home. All three gave conflicting accounts of where they had been at the time.

At an earlier hearing, West, of Rugby Street, Jenkins, of Perth Street, and Armstrong, of Lowthian Road, all Hartlepool, admitted unlawful wounding.

Paul Cleasby, for West, said that although he was the instigator, he tried to halt the attack when a knife was pulled out because he did not realise one was present.

Robin Denny said Armstrong had not touched alcohol since the January 4 attack because he was so horrified by what he had been involved in.

Paul Newcombe, for Jenkins, described him as immature and susceptible and said he should not have become involved in someone else’s argument.

They were told by Judge George Moorhouse: “I am satisfied that this was a pre-planned attack and that is confirmed by what the taxi driver heard.”