A sadastic thug who tried to kill his two elderly neighbours in a frenzied knife attack at their Wolverhampton flat was today sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.

David Brown was jailed indefinitely at the city’s crown court for the attempted murders of pensioners Evelyn and Reg Leedham.

The couple, aged 74 and 78, had their wrists cut to the bone and almost bled to death during the terrifying two-hour ordeal in their Merry Hill home.

Judge John Warner today ruled the 39-year-old would not be considered for parole until 2024. Even then, he can only be freed if experts agree he is no longer a danger to the public.

Brown, who has three Xs tattooed on the back of his head, stood stone-faced in the dock at the judge told him his crime was “so far off the radar of human behaviour” he posed a grave risk to the public. “The details of the incredible cruelty you inflicted are almost unbelievable,” he told Brown.

“You sawed through the wrists of this couple and cut the throat of Mrs Leedham in a criss-crossed fashion that grotesquely echoed the similarly-shaped tattoo on your head.”

The divorced father-of-one, who drank heavily and used heroin, lived on the same floor as the couple in St Joseph’s Court for four years before bursting into their flat armed with two knives on December 4.

He stabbed Mrs Leedham when she answered the door and then turned on her disabled husband, who has Parkinson’s Disease, before waiting two hours to call an ambulance.