A WESTON man was beaten over the head with a bat following a dispute with a neighbour over noise levels, Bristol Crown Court was told.

James McIlwain, aged 34, was handed a suspended jail sentence for his role in an attack on Phillip Lloyd when they lived in flats in Worlebury Hill Road last year.

John Penny, prosecuting, said the pair clashed on October 9 over noise coming from McIlwain’s flat.

And in the early hours of October 10, McIlwain and two other men broke down Mr Lloyd’s door with a brick when he refused to let them in.

Lloyd picked up a bat and an axe handle to try to defend himself as he attempted to push the door closed while the three rammed the door.

A neighbour frightened off the trio after Lloyd was hit over the head with the bat by one of the unnamed men. He was hit across the face, causing damage to his lips and pushing his front teeth back.

Mr Penny said: “On arrest he [McIlwain] said ‘I will go back there and smash him. I have been threatened and so has my son’.”

Susan Cavender, defending, told the court Mr Lloyd’s earlier visit to McIlwain riled him.

A neighbour told police he heard Mr Lloyd call the defendant a ‘f**king t***’ in front of McIlwain’s child.

McIlwain, who now lives in Locking Road, was found not guilty of wounding with intent of causing grievous bodily harm.

But on Thursday he was given a nine-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months, ordered to carry out 60 hours’ unpaid community work and to pay Mr Lloyd �500 compensation for a lesser charge of unlawful wounding.