Stradishall defendant David Perry awaits verdict over Clare axe attack at the Bell Hotel

The jury are to continue their deliberations in the trial of a Stradishall man charged with attempted murder after attacking his victim with an axe at a pub.

Landscape gardener David Perry, 39, of St Margaret's Place, swung the long-handled axe and struck the man’s head at the Bell Hotel in Clare, near Bury St Edmunds, Sudbury and Haverhill, on March 19 last year, leaving him bleeding on the floor.

Perry had been thrown out of the pub following a row between him and a group, which the victim was part of, but he returned with the axe that he’d got from his truck.

The defendant said he had realised he had left his phone on charge at the Bell and decided to go back to collect it, taking the axe ‘as a deterrent so I could walk in and walk out again’. He denies intending to kill anyone.

Today, day five of the trial at Ipswich Crown Court, defence barrister Claire Matthews and Judge Martyn Levett gave their summaries before the jury retired to come to a verdict.

Addressing the jury, Miss Matthews suggested they could not be sure that Perry had intended to kill the victim.

After striking the man, Perry turned his back on him, stepped over him and walked over to where his phone was, she said.

“Was he intent on murder or might it have been he was intent on causing him really serious harm?” Miss Matthews said.

“Why not continue the attack? Why not carry on bringing the axe down, particularly now he’s even more vulnerable on the ground? Why not make absolutely sure you have finished the job you were intending on doing?”

Perry admits carrying the axe and admits causing with intent serious bodily harm, and the incident was captured on CCTV, which the jury re-watched during their deliberations.

Miss Matthews drew the jury’s attention to the aftermath of the attack, in which Perry went to the Tesco superstore at St Saviours Interchange in Bury St Edmunds and spoke to a cashier about what had happened.

“He said the person wasn’t moving,” said Miss Matthews. “It doesn’t follow that simply because he feared he had killed him, that that was his intention. Please don’t confuse the two. It was what was in his mind at the time, not later, that you are concerned about.”

Summarising, Judge Levett went through witness statements of the attack; one said he came into the pub almost marching and another said he landed the axe with force into the victim’s head.

Judge Levett said prosecutor Carolyn Gardiner had suggested he went out and chose a large blade ‘as he was in this red mist’.

The court heard how Perry, who doesn’t have a full recollection of the night, had told the Tesco cashier he had maybe ‘made the worst decision of his life’.

When Perry was later arrested, he expressed concern for the man he had attacked.

The victim was treated at hospital for skull injuries, but has since recovered.

The jury has been asked to stop their deliberations today and to return to court on Monday morning.