A man provoked into bludgeoning his friend to death with a sledgeham-mer in a "blind rage" has been jailed for six years.

Thomas MacDonald, 53, was convicted of man-slaughter last month after he admitted attacking Roger Wilton in August in a house on Wimborne Road, Poole, on August 4, 2003, but MacDonald said he had only hit the 58 year old with the 14lb sledge-hammer because he had been threatened with a knife and an axe.

And the jury cleared him of murder.

Jane Miller mitigating, said the jury had accepted MacDonald, of no fixed abode, was provoked into the attack.

"It's by chance that the sledgehammer was there - although very serious damage was done to Mr Wilton it was done quite clearly in a blind rage," she said.

"Going over the top as he did, it's indicative of the way he lost it rather than the damage he wanted to do to this man."

Judge Charles Gray, sentencing yesterday, said he was satisfied that provocation was the basis for MacDonald's conviction.

He added that the defendant had been described as a "model prisoner" during his 15-month period on remand in which he saved a prison officer from assault. But Mr Justice Gray said the circumstances in which Mr Wilton died were "truly horrific".

"You struck Mr Wilton with the sledgehammer not just once but five or six times with all the force at your command," he said.

MacDonald and Wilton met at Heathrow airport in the summer and decided to set up a company laying gas pipelines in Turkey.

Mr Wilton was killed during an argument when MacDonald became suspicious about his friend's claims he could get them work.

Det. Sergeant Ben Hargreaves said after the sentence: "It has taken a long time and it will be nice for the family to get closure."