A 15-year-old boy has been locked up for stabbing a man with learning difficulties 18 times during a brutal gang attack.

Knifeman Ben Dean and fellow teenagers Keian Heap and Jack Clark were among a gang of ten who went to the house of the victim in Kingfisher Drive, Bury, lured him to a nearby field, and hit him with a fence post, before punching him to the floor, stamping on his head and stabbing him.

The 22-year-old victim, who will be referred to as "KC", was left covered in blood to stagger home to his pregnant girlfriend and was lucky not to have died, Bolton Crown Court heard.

All three defendants had a previous conviction for assaulting an autistic boy in a Bury park and Judge Peter Davies said: "There is something about people with learning difficulties that you three take a serious exception to."

Dean, of New Cateaton Street, Bury, and Clarke, also aged 15, of Walnut Avenue, Bury, both admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and were each ordered to serve five years juvenile detention. Clark had handed Dean the knife. 

Heap, aged 19, of Walmersley Road, Bury, admitted violent disorder and was jailed for three years.

Judge Davies ruled the case was so serious he would lift legal restrictions — at the Bury Times’s request — to allow Dean and Clark to be named.

He said: "What they have done is so shocking that members of the public should know what they have done.

"This was a merciless, sadistic and bloodthirsty attack on a vulnerable man who was cowering on the ground. This could have easily been murder."

The drama began in the early hours of October 2 when Dean and Clark went to KC's home.

They knocked on the door and asked KC for a cigarette.

When he refused, they punched him and began banging on his windows until eventually, his pregnant partner asked them to leave.

Then at 1.30am on October 4, Dean and Clark left a party with five other teenagers and returned to KC's home.

While throwing stones at his windows and banging on the door, Dean and Clark shouted: "Come out, you mong" and called the victim a schizophrenic while demanding he "come out and fight."

Prosecuting, Rachel White said: "The victim felt as though this would not end unless he did as they were asking and went out."

The gang walked with KC along Swallow Drive, through an alleyway and onto a field known as the Black Path. There was a skirmish and KC returned home.

Moments later, the gang of seven were joined by three others, including Heap and followed KC back to his home to resume the baiting.

While KC headed back to the Black Path, thinking he would have a fair fight with one of the gang, Heap and Clark went back to the party to, as Clark put it "get kitted up with a blade."

Clark took an 8in kitchen knife and returned to the Black Path and passed the knife to Heap.

The court heard Clark hit KC with a fence post and KC was punched to the ground and then kicked, stamped on and stabbed as he lay curled in a ball.

KC was taken to hospital suffering from a collapsed lung and multiple stab wounds.

Judge Davies described it as a miracle that he was able to return home quickly after the attack, which had a devastating psychological impact on he and his partner, who moved out of their home and split up due to the stress of the incident.

All three defendants expressed their remorse, though Judge Davies said that he did not believe it to be genuine.

Heap, a father of three-year-old twins, was criticised for leading the gang to the field and for saying to KC after the attack words to the affect of: "Do not pick on little kids anymore."

Defending Heap, Stuart Duke said: "However one dresses this up, this offence is a shocking and horrific offence.

"The fact that a man can be baited and chased down an alleyway and attacked by multiple children is frightening to say the least.

"It is perhaps by virtue of good luck rather than good management that the stab wounds did not prove fatal."

After the hearing, KC, a father of two, said he was happy the trio were behind bars.

He added: "The attack went on and on forever. I thought they were going to kill me.

"I was in so much pain, and I was trying to shout and scream, but they just wouldn't stop.

"They knew I'm bipolar and that's why they picked me.

"I think about it all the time and when I try and block it out of my mind, I have a scar on my hand which refreshes it all over again in my mind.

"They have ruined my life, and I did nothing wrong. I'm not the same person today as I was before.

"I went outside that night to protect my property and to protect my pregnant girlfriend.

"I wouldn’t be able to do that again today because of what they’ve made me.

"They took away the woman I love, and I'll be left with the scars for the rest of my life. I can never forgive them for that."

Vicki Nash, of mental-health charity Mind, said: "This was a truly appalling case but sadly it is not at all unusual for people with mental-health problems to be victimised.

"Research led by Mind and Victim Support found that people with severe mental-health problems are five times more likely to be a victim of assault than the general population and far more likely to be a repeat victim of crime."