Pictured: Crossbow attacker Delroy Mairah shot neighbour in jealous rage

Jealous Delroy Mairah, 40, advanced on a resident of a neighbouring flat wielding a one-handed crossbow and an axe.

He was caught on CCTV in a car park in East Street, Colchester, telling his friends “watch this”.

Ipswich Crown Court heard he pointed a small £80 metal tactical crossbow at the victim and fired.

The victim can be heard saying “what are you on about, don’t shoot me with that thing”.

The bolt was fired at 200ft per second and punctured the victim’s shirt and skin. Mairah also wielded a small axe in his other hand.

The court was told Mairah carried out a “revenge attack”, accusing the victim of sleeping with his partner.

Jailed - Delroy Mairah appeared at Ipswich Crown Court on Thursday

The victim had moved into a flat neighbouring Mairah’s partner in the days prior to the attack.

The court heard there was a conversation between the defendant and the victim which caused Mairah to feel “some form of disrespect”.

Speaking to the Gazette after the attack, the victim, who asked not to be named, said: “I was talking to one of the occupants at the temporary accommodation, the next thing I’m hearing shouting in my ear about ‘sleeping with my missus’ or something.

“He was on the other side of the van bonnet, with a crossbow in my face.”

He added:  “I said ‘don’t shoot me with that thing’.

“The next thing he had shot me with a small bolt with a sharp point.

"The end of it penetrated my abdomen, it was kind of sitting on my skin slightly dragging down so I pulled it out and dropped it.

“A guy who lives in the same block of flats as me came out to my defence.

“I ran around the corner and I could hear the noise of the crossbow being cranked again, as if he was putting another bolt in."

The victim pulled the bolt from his abdomen following the attack and later handed it over to the police.

The scene in East Street as armed police hunted for Mairah

He said: "I was more concerned with finding another shirt so I could go to the party.

“But the next day when I had a chance to sit down and think about what happened to me, it did effect me and I thought I could have lost my life.

“He could have hit me in the eye or the face.”

In a statement read to the court, he said he had felt anxiety when thinking back on the attack, particularly when considering “his own safety and the safety of his pregnant partner and son”.

Mairah, who has ten convictions for 17 offences, handed himself in at Colchester Police Station on September 16, four days after the attack.

He told the police he had not meant to fire the crossbow, an assertion Judge Emma Peters branded as “complete nonsense”.

He admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possession of an offensive weapon and possession of a blade.

Kevin Toomey, mitigating, said Mariah had struggled with depression after losing both his mother and his father to illness in quick succession.

Judge Emma Peters sentenced Mairah, of East Street, Colchester, to three years and four months imprisonment.

She acknowledged he had showed some concern for the victim when he handed himself in to the police.

She said while the crossbow was small and sold online "legitimately and lawfully", it was a "very frightening item indeed".

She added: “As you strode across the courtyard, as you shot him with that crossbow, there was no mercy at all in your heart that I could see."