A drug addict attacked a man he considered a cousin because he failed to pay for $350 worth of cocaine, a court heard on Monday. Kamel Jamel Trott, 29, told his victim before attacking him with a mattock (a kind of pickaxe): ?You better get some money. Do what you got to do. Go rob an old lady or break into a car or something.?

Prosecutor Graveney Bannister told Supreme Court One that Trott had known the other man all his life and the pair called each other cousin.

But he said the friendship turned sour last February when the victim, a recovering drug user, asked for some cocaine on credit.

Trott, of Kitty?s Lane, Hamilton Parish, obliged and then visited the man the next day to demand payment. Mr. Bannister said that the man told him he would try to get the money.

?The accused responded by saying ?I ain?t having it. I?ll kill you, if you don?t get my money. I?ll put you in the hospital?. The complainant was only able to pay $40.?

He said Trott returned twice to the victim?s house to ask for the cash and smoked cocaine on his porch, telling him: ?Time is running out.?

Mr. Bannister said that when Trott walked off ?the complainant said a little prayer because he became very fearful of what could happen to him?.

When Trott returned he struck the victim on the wrist with the mattock. Mr. Bannister said: ?The complainant started to scream from the pain but he watched the accused keep striking him with the mattock.

?The accused hit the complainant all over his body, head, wrist and legs. He was frightened for his life and the accused kept yelling, cursing and striking the complainant with the mattock.?

The man suffered a broken left wrist, nose, right knee and ribs plus cuts on his thigh and head and a bruised lung.

Trott admitted a charge of grievous bodily harm and was given a three-year jail term ? minus seven months already spent on remand ? and two-year probation order by Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons.

The court heard he had previous convictions for the same offence.

He told the judge he had started smoking marijuana aged five and began using heroin at 12. ?The road that I have travelled has been a rough one,? he said ?There comes a time in a man?s life when he sits back and reflects on his past, present and future.

?That time is now. I want a chance to make something of my life.?

Mrs. Justice Simmons said he would have to undergo drug testing and abstain from alcohol and drugs as part of his probation order.

She also ordered that Trott spend six months on a residential drug treatment programme.

The judge told him: ?I think that you are a disaster waiting to happen to your next victim.? She said the road ahead of him would be a tough one but added: ?At least at the end of that road it will be much better for you.?