A Forde man punctured his neighbour's arm with a garden fork during an ongoing dispute that had driven the accused to sell his house, a court has heard.
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Ivan Barac, 67, was arrested after his neighbour showed police CCTV footage of the front-yard confrontation and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in the ACT Magistrates Court.
![The neighbours had been embroiled in a dispute for several years, the court was told. Photo: Paul Maguire The neighbours had been embroiled in a dispute for several years, the court was told. Photo: Paul Maguire](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/52101886-90e4-44d7-886c-fe8c5fec9039/r0_0_1481_2000_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Court documents said Mr Barac was mowing his nature strip when his neighbour called out to him on Sunday afternoon.
"Princess, I'm going to fix you up. Your present is on the way," the neighbour allegedly said during the exchange.
The accused is alleged to have replied: "I don't want your present, I don't want anything to do with you."
Mr Barac allegedly continued to call out to the neighbour before the man decided he'd had enough and walked towards the defendant's house as his partner tried to hold him back.
Fearing his neighbour would attack him, Mr Barac grabbed the one metre-long garden fork from his garage as the man approached.
He swung the fork twice at the man before striking his arm with the fork's steel prongs on the third swing.
the man noticed blood seeping from three puncture marks on his left forearm.
He said to Mr Barac: "You're gone, I've got this on camera." The man returned home, court documents said.
Mr Barac was charged that afternoon.
In an interview with police, he said he'd warned his neighbour several times to leave or he would strike him. He believed he had the right to protect his property.
He had experienced problems with his neighbours for the past three years, and the man had assaulted him previously.
Prosecutors opposed his application for bail in front of Magistrate Karen Fryar on grounds he was likely to reoffend.
A police officer told the court Mr Barac had been sentenced in January for committing offensive behaviour in public after an earlier interaction with the same alleged complainants.
The neighbours had been in a car reversing out of their driveway across the road when Mr Barac mooned the car and stuck his middle finger up at them in January last year.
The prosecutor said the fresh offence should be considered in the broader context of the persistent dispute between the men, which appeared to have escalated.
Mr Barac's Legal Aid duty lawyer said Mr Barac and his wife of 48 years had lived in the house for six years but the couple was in the process of selling the property.
"Sadly, I think that's probably the best idea," Ms Fryar said.
"If you've proved in time you can't live in the vicinity of each other, one or the other has to leave."
Ms Fryar granted bail on conditions Mr Barac not approach his neighbours and not harass, threaten or intimidate them.
She noted the neighbour's behaviour "does not seem impeccable" and appeared quite provocative.
"But I'm not saying you're not in strife for your part in this."