I was clearing grass in the triangle field on Sunday 7th September, when I heard Craig, who was standing at the boundary some 50 feet away, shouting out my surname and something about the trees.
I walked over to within four or five feet to see what his tirade was all about.
Craig Townsend claimed the boundary wall and trees were his and I should have asked his permission to cut down some wood. He was, as usual towards me, very aggressive; telling me that if I wanted wood I had plenty of other trees I could have cut. I pointed out that the boundary was not his and that however if he thought the boundary was his he could discuss things without being abusive. He responded with his common barrage of hate speech about hippies and caravans saying I should leave, remove the caravan and go and live like everyone else in the village. On occasions when I have had reason to talk with Craig he will not respond, saying he wants nothing to do with people like me, so I reminded him and suggested he wrote to me or that he could ask a solicitor to do so.
He then said that I knew the boundary was his as I had previously admitted knocking down a part of the wall on the boundary and by accepting I didn't have the authority to do so later, acknowledged that the boundary wall didn't belong to me. I had, and still have, no idea what he was talking about and said that not only was he unreasonably aggressive but he appeared to be losing the plot. I said that rather than me go and live in the village, maybe it would make more sense for him to go back to his home in the village and take his crackpot ideas and violent and abusive nature with him and then turned and walked away.
I had only walked another few yards when his abuse turned to threats that he was going to sort me out and I turned around to see him pick up a fence post. I asked him what the he was going to do with 'that' whereupon he threw it at me. It hit my head and I fell to the ground. Concerned I arose quickly but he didn't come into the field so I said 'You really are a fucking nutter' and walked away. Craig also walked back off into his field.
I have kept the post, which split when it hit me. The post is quite old and has a somewhat decayed exterior which luckily softened the blow, so I only had a few small grazes on the forehead where it hit
The post split where couple of screws are embedded, weakening that area. This is probably the part that made contact with my head, given the cuts I had.
Luckily for me the nail protruding form the end of post didn't embed itself in my head nor did the post hit my glasses.
I called the police as Craig Townsend has a record of verbal threats and assault, having repeatedly said that if there was no one around he would do something physical.
There were no witnesses so the police think there is little they can do as he will probably deny the attack.
Oh well!