A NETHERTON man was left badly injured by his former soldier brother in a row over their grandmother’s will.

Christopher Baker, aged 50, suffered a fractured skill, broken finger and ribs and a punctured lung after an attack by Mark Baker because he was getting a larger inheritance.

Baker had denied inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent on his brother and also assaulting him causing actual bodily harm but he was convicted by a jury following a three-day trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

As he jailed Baker for 12 years, Judge John Wait told him: “This a sad case in any view, it arises because of the festering resentment on your part over the distribution of the estate.

"This was a premeditated attack after you armed yourself with a weapon. You carried out a sustained attack on the vulnerable parts of his body."

The judge said Christopher Baker had always made it clear it was his brother who attacked him at his home in Northfield Road but he refused to make a complaint until he was assaulted again.

On that occasion, the court was told Mark Baker, aged 47, struck his brother in the face with a brick, damaging his nose and eye before vandalising his parked car.

The judge told Baker, of High Street, Lye: "He realised you were not going to leave him alone and it was then he made a statement to the police.

"Such a grievance can never justify the first attack you carried out on your brother."

Simon Hanns, defending Baker, who admitted a charge of criminal damage, said: "There was a clear issue as to the distribution of the grandmother's estate. Fortuitously the brother has made a full recovery from his injuries."

The jury had been told that Baker was aggrieved his brother was inheriting the bulk of the estate and he hit him a number of times with the hammer after going to his home.

The second assault took place on an industrial estate in the area, when Baker made threats to his brother before hitting him with the brick, smashing the back window in his car and kicking out at the door panels.

Dc Dan Bailey, from West Midlands Police, said: "It became clear that Baker was consumed with anger at the injustice he felt over the will and his brother came to believe that the threat to his life was very real.

“Baker will now pay a heavy price for his greed."