A MAN who clubbed his former brother-in-law unconscious with his walking stick has been cleared of assault.

A jury took only 20 minutes to accept Trevor Barnes' argument that he acted in self-defence when he beat Alan Alton in the street.

Mr Barnes, 58, admitted tussling with Mr Alton outside his home in Darlington, but said he had been provoked.

The taxi driver told the jury that Mr Alton taunted him by saying that all his family wanted him dead after his marriage had ended acrimoniously.

Mr Barnes also insisted that Mr Alton grabbed him by the neck, and started punching him, before he retaliated by wrestling his walking stick away and hitting him with it.

The court has been told that Mr Barnes was married to Mr Alton's sister for many years, and that the two men lived three doors apart, in Beaumont Hill.

A long-running family dispute over the ownership of building materials came to a head on February 17, when Mr Alton was walking his dog late at night, and a confrontation took place in the street.

The prosecution claimed Mr Barnes started the altercation before grabbing Mr Alton's metal stick, pushing him to the ground, and repeatedly hitting him with it.

It was alleged that Mr Alton, who walks with the stick following an accident and a hip replacement operation, was temporarily unconscious while Mr Barnes got into his taxi and drove off on a job.

Neighbours came to Mr Alton's aid before he was taken to hospital for treatment for an injury to the cartilage behind his ear.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Colin Harvey, Mr Barnes dismissed a suggestion that his account of the fight was an invention to excuse what he did.

He told the court: "I am responsible for putting him in hospital, but at the end of the day, I was in a tussle. He had hold of me - what was I supposed to do?"

Mr Barnes added: "He grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and went to hit me with his walking stick.

"He hit me on the side of the leg first, then continued and hit me at the side of my body.

"I then retaliated. There was a fight. I managed to grab the stick after he hit me a couple of times. As he was holding me and hitting me, I brayed him with the stick."

Mr Barnes had denied a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.