A mentally ill man who bludgeoned his elderly uncle over the head with a hammer until he thought he was dead has been committed to hospital indefinitely.

Paul Hartop, who claims his mother is the Queen and to be a friend of The Incredible Hulk, phoned police to confess to what he thought was the murder of 73-year-old Brendan Hartop, at his home at Main Street, Dromore, on March 11, 2012.

Officers found the critically ill pensioner was still breathing.

Hartop pleaded guilty at Dungannon Crown Court to attempting to murder his uncle, who now needs two carers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Judge Gemma Loughran, who made the hospital order, “without limit of time”, heard that Hartop was suffering from “a mental illness, namely Paranoid Schizophrenia”.

She was also told that he is convinced he has been resurrected three times, and that he has super-powers, and can recognise the same in others.

She had heard that Hartop thought that his uncle’s home was rightly his, after his grandfather, with whom he had lived for a time, had left it to his family. His uncle ultimately bought out his siblings and was living there alone. Hartop believed his family had been conspiring against him to have him thrown out on to the street. He decided to kill his sister and her husband, or his uncle. He decided to kill his elderly uncle as it was the “easier option”. He travelled by ferry from England to Belfast and took a taxi to his former home in Dromore.

During police interview Hartop described how he went into a shed at the rear of his uncle’s home on the Main Street and removed a claw hammer. He then went into the house and hid in an upstairs room where he lay in wait for a number of hours until his uncle arrived home. His uncle had been to a local pub for a few drinks.

On his uncle’s return Hartop waited for another hour until the pensioner was asleep and then went into the bedroom and struck him twice over the head with the hammer. Believing he had killed him, he went downstairs to make himself something to eat and then went to bed.

Around 8.30am the following morning he got up and noticed that his uncle had moved. Hartop told police he went and got a green towel and put it over the pensioner’s head before striking him a further number of blows to the head with the hammer.

The officer said Hartop gave police a graphic description of how he hit his uncle with the hammer and expressed surprise that the pensioner was still alive.

The terms of Hartop’s hospital order are such that even if doctors believe it would be safe to free him back into the community they will have first to refer his case back to the Department of Justice before he may be released.