A Birch River, Man., man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for a violent home invasion that saw an innocent victim awakened in the night and beaten bloody with a fence picket.

Michael Fox, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of housebreak and enter, commit robbery.

Court heard Fox, and at least two other unidentified males, broke into a townhouse around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, 2008, awakening a man sleeping upstairs.

When the man went downstairs to investigate the noise, he was beaten with a fence picket and dragged back to his room. Fox and the other men continued to beat the victim with boards and a baseboard heater.

"Not to be gratuitous, but it was a veritable bloodbath in the bedroom," said Crown attorney Mike Desautels. "There was blood spatter all over the walls of the bedroom, pools of blood on the ground."

The victim told police he believed his attackers thought there was a grow-op in the home.

The attackers ransacked the home, stealing several pieces of electronic equipment, the victim's wallet and his false teeth.

Police arrested Fox three hours later after responding to a domestic disturbance at his sister's home. Police found Fox in possession of the victim's wallet and quickly linked him to the home invasion.

Fox was still wearing the same blood-soaked clothes he had on during the home invasion.

"The blood had soaked through two layers of clothing," Desautels said. "He was in the thick of it, so to speak."

Fox received double credit for time served, reducing his remaining sentence to three years and four months.