The owner of a rural tenement was cleared of having grievously injured a neighbour on the grounds of legitimate self defence after it emerged in court that the alleged victim had first attempted to strike his aggressor with a scythe.

Colin Farrugia, the 36-year old owner of rural property at Selmun, had long been at loggerheads with Augustine Bonello, the owner of a neighbouring tenement who alleged that the accused had occasionally trespassed upon his land when out hunting.

Matters between the two came to a head one April afternoon back in 2009 when they crossed paths while driving in opposite directions in the vicinity of Selmun.

The victim ended up with a fractured nose and broken front teeth, while the aggressor suffered wounds to his hands.

Both men had filed a police report with the alleged victim saying that he had raised his arm upon sighting Mr Farrugia driving past so as to avoid looking directly at the other man. However, the latter had allegedly interpreted this movement as an offensive gesture and had chased Mr Bonello until he finally blocked his path.

In the ensuing argument, the accused had allegedly punched the victim in the face causing him the injuries which took a month to heal. The victim had insisted that the accused had dealt the first blow and had denied any retaliation on his part.

However, scientific evidence put forward in court as well as the testimony of the accused himself, gave rise to a very different version which, at the end of the day, was deemed to be more credible by the court.

Indeed, when the accused had approached the alleged victim after noticing his hand gesture, the other man had attempted to strike him with a scythe lying next to the passenger seat inside his vehicle.

The accused had managed to grip the blade just in time and had suffered hand injuries whilst attempting to wrestle the weapon out of its owner’s grasp.

Weighing the diametrically opposed versions of the parties, former magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera concluded that the alleged victim had lacked credibility when he first made no mention of the scythe and had only admitted under cross-examination that the accused had punched him when he raised the weapon.

The blade wounds on the accused’s hands further corroborated his own version of the incident, the court said.

Moreover, it was observed that there was a sharp disparity of stature, with the accused being rather small in comparison to the alleged victim who was tall and well-built.

“Faced with a serious and imminent danger as perceived by him at the time, he could not be expected to remain calm,” the court pointed out, further noting that the alleged victim had various brushes with the law as evidenced by his criminal record.

In such circumstances, even the law allowed for ‘miscalculations and errors of judgment,’ the court declared, clearing the alleged aggressor on the grounds of legitimate self defence.

Lawyer Edward Gatt was defence counsel.