A racist thug who slashed a shopkeeper’s neck in his store in Paddington leaving him millimetres from death has been jailed for life.

Andrew Jefferson, 53, yelled ‘you f*****g foreigners, coming to the UK to poison the British people’ before knifing Hilmi Uludag at Padiciya Wine on London Street, on October 18 last year.

The victim was left with slashes to the throat that required 12 stitches and cuts to his chin and leg.

Southwark Crown Court heard the wounds severed the nerves in his face and he was lucky to survive the frenzy.

Turkish national Mr Uludag had sold Jefferson two cans of beer between 10.30 and 11.00 that evening.

Mr Uludag said: “He said nothing, no words at all.

“He didn’t even say a word, he took the bag he was just looking at me, not even one word and he just walked out.”

But Jefferson was suffering from a delusion that the beer sold to him was poisoned.

Two hours later Jefferson returned with a small black-handled kitchen knife stuffed up his jumper walked behind the counter of the shop and attacked the shopkeeper.

Mr Uludag said: “I was screaming, I was saying “I have been stabbed, I have been stabbed”. “

His nerves were severed from a cut to the chin and he remains unsure if they will grow again.

Jefferson was found guilty of attempted murder in March after admitting the lesser charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Judge Martin Beddoe sentenced Jefferson, who is currently held in a secure mental health facility, to life imprisonment and ordered he serve at least 10 years.

Jefferson appeared in the dock surrounded by three mental health professionals and will remain in a medium-secure unit before moving to prison if treatment is successful.