An axe attack by Stradishall man David Perry in Clare came 'within one centimetre of killing his victim'

The victim of an axe attack carried out at a Suffolk pub came within one centimetre of suffering a serious brain injury or death, a jury has been told.

Jurors were told that when David Perry, of St Margaret's Place, Stradishall, struck his victim in the head with an axe at the Bell Hotel, Clare on March 19 last year, he came perilously close to dying.

Perry, 39, is on trial for attempted murder, having already admitted that he struck the man with the axe.

During her summing up at the end of the fourth day of the trial, prosecutor, Carolyn Gardener, said: "The injury could potentially be life threatening or life altering but the area of the skull struck had afforded him protection but less than 1cm away there is a very thin area of the skull that would have protected the brain far less.

"It's very possible he could have obtained a serious brain injury or death."

On what was the fourth day of the trial, jurors had previously heard how Perry got involved in an argument with three men who were drinking in the pub.

He had believed a comment made by one of the men towards a woman had been insulting and after being ejected from the pub after becoming aggressive went to his van.

The landscape gardener returned with a long handled axe - used to cut through branch roots - and swung it at the victim, knocking him to the ground.

Mrs Gardener described the attack, which jurors had watched on a CCTV recording, saying: "He thought he had killed him. He stepped over his body.

"He didn't look back and two hours later he was telling a cashier at Tesco (Perry had driven to the Tesco at Bury St Edmunds) 'well, he didn't move, put it that way.'

"He thought he had killed him."

Perry had argued that he only had the axe as a 'deterrent' and that he had no intention of killing anyone.

He had told the court: "Attempted murder, no, it's not in my nature. If that was me thinking normally I wouldn't have done that.

"At the end of the day I messed up but attempted murder no, that was not in my thoughts.

Mrs Gardener continued, saying: "He got drunk, he lost his temper. He couldn't control himself.

"The Crown is saying he didn't come in with that axe as a deterrent..

"He raced in. People heard him screaming, witnesses thought he was wild. He raced in an If you stop it (the CCTV film) and pause it as you come in you genuinely think he is looking at the victim from the moment he enters the room.

"He is bearing his teeth and showing aggression and he looks at him all the way through, straight at him, before he attacked him."

Mrs Gardener described how the victim had put his hands up to protect himself and had moved back slightly, a step that probably saved him from more serious injury.

She added: "We still know that the force was top of the scale. It was severe.

"He bought the axe in an arc, over his head down on to the victim."

The defence barrister, Claire Matthews, will give her summing up tomorrow morning, but asking Perry 'what do you think of yourself' he said: "An absolute disgrace. I'm a fraud to my children."

The trial continues.