AN ARMED attacker seeking ‘revenge’ who pounced on his teenage victim and plotted to kill him while he slept has been jailed.

Stuart Greener left the 16-year-old boy with 22 wounds after repeatedly slashing his head, back, neck and hand with a kitchen knife.

He also plunged the blade deep into the teenager’s mouth and through his cheek, forcing him to spend five nights in hospital.

The 41-year-old, who confessed to attempted murder, looked on emotionless as Judge Ian Pringle QC jailed him for 12 years on Thursday.

Oxford Crown Court heard the victim, a suspected drug dealer, has been left with permanent facial scarring and a ‘lop-sided’ smile, as well as paralysis and loss of feeling in part of his face.

Investigating officer Detective Constable Darren Pomroy, of force CID based at Banbury police station, described the attack as ‘horrific’.

Greener was lodging at a property in Bicester’s Hudson Street, known to police as a drugs den, prosecutor Charles Ward-Jackson said.

The youngster, who was visiting the house, went upstairs to sleep in a bedroom after smoking cannabis at about midday on January 7.

He woke to discover his attacker on his knees, towering over him as he stabbed him in the neck.

The teenager tried to fight Greener off, throwing his arm against the blade to block the blows and eventually managing to grasp the knife from the defendant’s hand.

The blade snapped and the teenager was able to chuck it to the floor, but Greener persisted with his carnage, continuing to slit the victim’s face with the remaining part of the knife.

As his victim asked for help, Greener halted his frenzy and instead began stabbing the victim’s mobile. He then snatched cash from the jacket the teenager was wearing before fleeing with the phone, the prosecutor said.

The teenager scrambled down the stairs as blood poured from his body, forced to clamber out of a window after realising Greener had locked him in the house.

He stumbled into the street, grabbing the attention of a neighbour who called emergency services. Greener, of no fixed abode, was later caught by police with the blood-stained broken blade hidden in a rucksack.

The court was told Greener claimed he was robbed in the house the night before, with a gang snatching £300 he wanted to use to splash out on a new car.

Nobody has been charged and the crime remains unsolved, but Greener believed the teenager was involved after seeing him with the cash.

Defence barrister Alistair Grainger said the teenager was a ‘runner’, who travelled from London to dish out drugs in Bicester.

Greener, who had previous convictions including drink-driving and must pay a victim surcharge, was not a ‘mindless thug’ but a troubled man who needed help to battle his drug and alcohol issues, Mr Grainger said.