A MAN convicted of battery after he was said to have sprayed a hosepipe on his hedge-trimming neighbour and knocked her off a ladder, has won a fight to clear his name.

Alex Leaver, 38, was said by the prosecution to have deliberately drenched Jilly Sandamas as she was cutting the leylandi hedge, which bordered their houses in Barnoldswick.

She was said to have been hit in the face with water with such force, she fell into a flower bed and hurt her knee.

Mr Leaver had been found guilty of battery after a trial before Pennine magistrates, but appealed against the conviction at Burnley Crown Court and won.

Mr Leaver, of Coates Lane, has no criminal convictions.

He had been alleged to have struck Mrs Sandamas with a ‘deluge of water’ as she used electric hedge trimmers and was in a ‘precarious position.’ But, Mr Leaver, whose house is back-to-back with Mrs Sandamas’s family home, denied any deliberate assault on his neighbour and said it was a pure accident.

Sarah Statham, for the Crown, had told the appeal hearing Mr Leaver and Mrs Sandamas, who is profoundly deaf, had an adjoining border, which comprised a leylandi hedge. It belonged to Mr Leaver. On Mrs Sandamas’s side of the border she had a fence, which was lower than the hedge and, claimed Miss Statham, the leylandi protruded significantly above her fence.

Mrs Sandamas decided to take advantage of a sunny day and went out with electrical hedge trimmers to trim the hedge on her side. She used a set of ladders and was on the ninth rung when she said she felt a deluge of water hit her in the face.

The force was said to have caused her to tumble directly to the ground and she landed in the flower bed. The trimmers fell a short distance away. Mrs Sandamas was shocked and very wet. She went to a neighbour's house and asked her to call police.

Miss Statham said neighbours Keith and Vivienne Hardwick saw Mr Leaver using a hosepipe.

Mr Hardwick said he saw Mr Leaver squeezing the end of the hosepipe, as if trying to get more water pressure and then aim for the ladders.

Miss Statham said Mr Leaver told officers he couldn't hear her using the hedge trimmers. He had decided the hedge had needed some water. He denied creating any extra pressure.

Allowing the appeal, Recorder William TC Smith, sitting with two justices, described the case as unfortunate and unusual.

He said he “We cannot be satisfied that we are sure that the offence has been made out against Mr Leaver.”