A 32-year-old man has been jailed for stabbing his father in the back with a steak knife.

Daniel Eacott was sentenced to five years and four months' imprisonment at Ipswich Crown Court on Wednesday for unlawfully and maliciously wounding Adrian Eacott with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Eacott, of Queens Road, Felixstowe, admitted the offence at an earlier plea hearing before the same court last month.

Appearing via video link from Norwich prison this week, he listened as prosecutor Richard Potts explained how the "sad and serious" events unfolded against a backdrop of disharmony at the family home.

Mr Potts said Adrian Eacott was on the phone to a colleague when his son stabbed him twice in the back and once behind the ear on the afternoon of October 14.

Mr Potts said Eacott's mother returned home from shopping to find him in the hallway holding a steak knife in one hand, and in his other hand, the telephone he had used to report the stabbing to police.

His father suffered a 2cm stab wound to the upper torso – piercing the chest cavity and puncturing his right lung.

William Carter, mitigating, said Eacott was a man of previously good character, with a history of difficulties and vulnerabilities, classified as recurrent depressive disorder and social phobia.

Mr Carter said Eacott's lack of self-worth and low self-esteem had been exacerbated by the questionable success of surgery to rectify his short stature as a child.

"What had already been pretty reclusive behaviour became more extreme within a family home where the atmosphere was described as toxic," he added.

Mr Carter said the death of Eacott's dog just before the first Covid-19 lockdown worsened matters, and that a visit by police for an unrelated matter on October 13 provided the catalyst for events the following day.

Mr Carter said Eacott was racked with guilt and remorse for the pain he had caused his father, who, the court heard, had sought to take much of the blame for the situation in the household at the time, had forgiven his son, and had not been willing to give evidence against him from the outset.

Judge Emma Peters said Eacott had been brooding on his sense of anger towards his father and that circumstances had combined to create the "perfect storm".