A NEPHEW who branded his uncle with a hot iron and tried to strangle him has been jailed for 30 months.

Lee Brooks went to John Garry's Breightmet flat on the evening of October 26 last year and attacked the older man after being let in.

Brooks, aged 35, of Swinside Road, Breightmet, had denied causing Mr Garry actual bodily harm, but was found guilty by a jury following a trial at Bolton Crown Court.

The court had heard how the two men had been drinking together at Mr Garry's flat during the afternoon before Brooks left and returned at 7pm.

As he was let in Brooks put a ligature round Mr Garry’s neck and tried to strangle him.

The uncle managed to get to the couch in the living room, but beside the sofa was an iron, which Brooks switched on.

"He pinned Mr Garry down on to the couch with the now hot iron and put it on, firstly, the back on one of Mr Garry's hands and then applied it to the other one," Brian McKenna, prosecuting, had told the jury.

In the struggle Mr Garry was also hit over the head with the iron with such force that it broke and Brooks told his victim that the assault was in revenge for a previous incident in the family.

After fleeing Mr Garry's home, Brooks texted his cousin, Natalie Dawson, to confide in her and asking her to call an ambulance for their uncle, telling her in another message “eventually people pay.”

Ms Dawson and other members of the family went to Mr Garry's home and alerted the emergency services.

The victim needed treatment for a cut head, burns to his cheek and the left side of his face. His hands were also burnt and blistered and there was a ligature mark on his neck.

At his sentencing hearing, Judge Graeme Smith was told that Brooks has criminal convictions dating back 16 years, including some for assault.

Wayne Jackson, defending, described the attack on Mr Garry as an “unpleasant offence” during which the defendant later admitted he had been “off his head”.

“There is an underlying drink issue and drugs in the background,” he added.

Brooks appeared for sentence via a video link from Forest Bank prison.

Sentencing him to 30 months behind bars, Judge Smith told Brooks: “It was a particularly nasty and sadistic attack using two weapons against a member of your own family.”