Trial – Mansfield man who allegedly gashed neighbour's cheek with golf club said victim was ‘very welcoming’ at first

Ashley Bates, 40, denies inflicting grievous bodily harm in a dispute over loud music at the flats on Bamford Drive, Mansfield, on January 25, 2022.

He told Nottingham Crown Court he was upset following a recent bereavement and took the golf club for protection.

"I couldn't bite my lip any more when I asked him," he said. "He ran up the stairs with his finger pointing at me and I leant over the bannister and that is when I obviously clipped him with the golf club."

Bates said he wanted to scare his neighbour, who is much bigger than him, following an altercation a fortnight earlier.

The court previously heard Bates had kicked him in the face while wearing football boots and his neighbour hit him in self-defence.

"He put my tooth through my lip when he wrestled me to the floor,” Bates said. “He nearly broke my shoulder. He petrified me. He is a very aggressive person."

Hal Ewing, prosecuting, said Bates also threatened his neighbour with a hammer moments before the golf club attack.

Bates denied this and said there was no bad blood between them after complaining to police about a cat his neighbour gave him that had fleas.

Mr Ewing claimed it would be impossible for the "relatively deep gash” to be inflicted, along with a fractured jaw, based on where Bates said he was standing in his evidence.

"The truth of the matter is this, you armed yourself with a golf club to speak to an unarmed man," Mr Ewing said. "You chose to hit him in the head."

Bates, now of Newtons Lane, Cossall, denied bragging about the attack and making threats in a text sent afterwards to a mutual friend.

He claimed he was showing off and being immature.

"Whenever I saw him I would just nod and say hello,” Bates told the court on Wednesday, November 5. “But 90 per cent of the time he didn't say anything back. He would just tell me to p*** off. I honestly don't know why.”

The trial continues.