SOMETIMES neighbouring disputes get completely out of hand, a court heard today.The statement was given at Ipswich Crown Court as an explanation of why John Walker faces assault charges.

SOMETIMES neighbouring disputes get completely out of hand, a court heard today.

The statement was given at Ipswich Crown Court as an explanation of why John Walker faces assault charges.

Walker, 32, of Orchard End, Grundisburgh, has denied causing actual bodily harm to Andrew Jackson, intimidating a witness and intimidating Mr Jackson with death threats. He is alleged to have assaulted Mr Jackson after a night out at The Dog pub in Grundisburgh on June 6 last year.

Speaking to the jury, Steven Dyble, defending, said: "There is no issue of an accident or Mr Walker acting in self defence. You have to decide if Mr Jackson was attacked and if so, was Mr Walker the man who attacked him."

Mr Dyble suggested Mr Jackson could not possibly see who his attacker was because the alleyway in which it had taken place was very dark and did not have street lighting. He posed the possibility that Mr Jackson made an assumption or that he had a vendetta against Walker.

He said: "Sometimes in neighbouring disputes things get completely out of hand."

He told the jury they had to be certain about the evidence to be able to reject any other possibility. He also posed the question of why Walker's former girlfriend, Rachel Dickings, took five months to change her statement.

Yesterday Pc Julian Davis, the officer in charge of the case, read out several interviews conducted with Walker after the alleged event.

During those interviews Walker repeatedly denied he had intimidated Miss Dickings into giving a false statement.

Mr Davis said: "Her original one was very supportive to yourself and she is saying she wrote it because she was intimidated by you."

Previously in the case Miss Dickings told the court she was warned by Walker not to tell the police about what she saw. She said: "He threatened to turn up at my work and come to get me and said that when he next saw me, it wouldn't be so funny and I would not want to see what he would do to me."

Mr Jackson claims he was hit in the side of the head and in the kidneys on his way home from The Dog on June 6 last year.

Walker is also denying a charge of intimidating Mr Jackson at his home in May this year when the defendant is said to have threatened to kill his family.

The jury will now decide the verdict.