Arthritic OAP ‘hit neighbour in face with leaf blower in row over ditch’
‘Rolled around on the ground’
A PENSIONER whacked his neighbour in the face with a leaf blower in a dispute over a ditch between their houses, a court heard yesterday.
Arthritis sufferer Peter Smythe, 74, allegedly hit Nigel Clark after ‘ aggressively’ asserting that the ditch belonged to him.
Company director Mr Clark, 63, was left with a fractured nose and eye socket. Describing the confrontation outside their Essex homes to a jury, Mr Clark said: ‘He raised his voice and behaved in an aggressive manner.
‘He came right up to my face and said, “This [ditch] is mine”. I didn’t want anything like this with a neighbour so I started to walk away and said, “I’m going”. He said, “Don’t you walk away from me”.’ Mr Clark added: ‘As I turned round I was struck with the leaf blower to the head.’
The dispute in July last year came about a few weeks after Mr Clark paid a gardener to carry out work on the ditch, which he says he owns outright.
But Mr Smythe believes it is a shared feature and claimed his neighbour ‘ ripped part of my hedge out’. Mr Smythe, a retired building sites manager, denies causing grievous bodily harm and claims he was punched first.
He said Mr Clark got his injuries when he fell down after a fight in which they rolled around on the ground ‘like a couple of kids’.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that Mr Clark and his wife Hervor had originally hoped to buy Peter and Jillian Smythe’s house in the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, near Tiptree, in 2014.
The sale fell through and they ended up buying Lennel House next door for £ 845,000 before demolishing it and spending 16 months building a new home.
On the day of the argument, Smythe had been clearing leaves in his garden when Mr Clark left the house to go to a postbox. Smythe, who uses crutches because of his arthritis, spoke to Mr Clark to ask for proof of who owned the ditch, jurors heard.
He said Mr Clark ‘smirked’ and told him: ‘I have destroyed them.’
Smythe added: ‘I followed him and I said, “Why don’t you speak to me, talk to me?” His reply was, “I’m not f****** frightened of you,” and it escalated from there. ‘I was close enough for him to throw a punch with his right hand and hit me on the left side of my face. He has got a good swing – he plays golf. He knocked me on the floor. That punch knocked me for six. He kicked me when I was on the ground and lost his shoe in the process. I got up. I had the blower between us. He pulled the nozzle off and prodded me with it in the chest, saying “Come on then”.’
Smythe said they then tussled on the ground before Mr Clark fell, causing his injuries.
But forensic pathologist Dr David Rouse told the jury Mr Clark’s facial injuries required ‘severe force’ with a blunt instrument. ‘One blow to the side of the face could generate all those,’ he said. He ruled out a fall as the cause as it would have left abrasions to the face. Smythe’s son Ashley told the court he had arrived home to see his father standing in the road with an ‘angry and aggressive’ Mr Clark. He said he saw his father lying on his back in a ‘defensive position’, adding: ‘ Nigel had my father pinned down to the ground. He was on his knees. ‘I hurled abuse at Nigel – “Oi, get the f*** off of him”. I was mortified at what I saw. ‘Nigel didn’t get off. I started running towards him and shouted again. He didn’t say a word. ‘Nigel had his fist drawn behind his shoulder as if he was going to strike my father. I grabbed Nigel and threw him off. He just looked full of rage. ‘I said to him, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself doing this to a 74-year-old man”.’ The trial continues.