A LONER who attacked four people in north Hampshire during a 15-month campaign of terror has today been jailed for life.

Christopher Sims attacked a pensioner near Up Nately and a kebab van worker near Hook, and terrorised and attacked solicitor Graeme Francis and his wife Patricia in the grounds of their home in Longparish, near Andover.

Today at Winchester Crown Court, Judge Keith Cutler sentenced Sims to life imprisonment. The judge told him he would serve a minimum of eight years in prison, and warned him it would be longer if he did not seek help from doctors about his apparently motiveless crimes.

The judge described a draft of a violent novel found by officers on a memory stick belonging to the 40-year-old, as a “chilling document” which “bore a striking resemblance” to the defendant’s behaviour.

He read out passages from the novel, such as “this is how I went from a law-abiding citizen to a kidnapper” and “I have decided that quiet country houses that are isolated are the easiest targets.”

The court heard Sims, formerly of Launcelot Close, Andover, began his violence at a time when he had lost his job, his home and his wife.

It began with the harassment of Graeme and Patricia Francis in Longparish that went on between December 2010 and March 2012. During that time he attacked both the husband and wife separately, by hitting them over the head with objects while they were outside the house.

He also shot dead their Golden Retriever Sandy with a modified air rifle.

It was on August 26, 2011, that he attacked 73-year-old John Casey in a country lane at Up Nately, after the victim had offered him a lift from the Basingstoke Canal at Odiham.

Sims used a lump hammer to strike Mr Casey, who used a nebuliser to help him breathe, before taking his car, leaving him for dead.

He attacked Ercan Yucekaya, a 21-year-old kebab van worker, in the layby near The Hogget pub in London Road, Hook in the early hours of Saturday, March 3 last year, and tried to attack him again three weeks later.

After the sentence, Detective Constable Rob Harrington from Andover CID, said: “This has been a very complex and lengthy investigation but I am pleased that this dangerous man has been sentence for his crimes.

“I hope that today’s sentencing will finally allow the victims and their families of these terrifying ordeals to begin to move on with their lives.”

For more on this story, see The Gazette on Thursday.