A MEMBER of a gang jailed for attacking a police patrol car with a brick is back behind bars following an attack on a neighbour of his girlfriend's grandmother.

Anthony Christie, now 28, was one of ten youths jailed for a total of 57 years for their parts in the incident, which left PC John Robinson fighting for his life in February 1993.

PC Robinson was struck on the head with a brick which smashed the windscreen of the patrol car in which he was travelling, in Pennywell, Sunderland.

He suffered a fractured skull and subsequent brain damage affecting his speech.

Both he and the car driver, PC Michael Mohon, later quit the force, and, backed by the Police Federation, successfully sued Northumbria Police for failing to provide toughened patrol vehicle windscreens.

They are awaiting details of a compensation settlement to be announced later this year.

Christie was jailed for nine years, reduced to seven on appeal, for criminal damage.

He came before Durham Crown Court yesterday for sentence after admitting wounding a 66-year-old neighbour of his girlfriend's grandmother, and criminal damage to a police car following his arrest.

Christie was said to have struck the arthritic man twice over the head with the handle of a sledgehammer in a struggle on the doorstep of the victim's home, in Portrush Road, Pennywell.

He also gouged at one of the man's eyes in a bid to break free from his grasp.

Jane Waugh, for Christie, said he only went to remonstrate with the man over the intensity of his security lighting, which was upsetting his girlfriend's elderly grandmother, who lives nearby.

Christie, of Somerset Road, Springwell, Sunderland, was jailed for two-and-a-half years.