A MAN was given a suspended prison sentence after a row over rubbish led him to wave a knife at his neighbour. 

Daran McNally, 49, of Coombe Street, Lyme Regis, was handed a four-month sentence suspended for 12 months at Dorchester Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to affray. 

The court heard how on April 5 last year, McNally was putting out the bins in an alley behind his house when he spotted a pile of discarded cigarette butts. 

He then proceeded to banged on the door of the flat opposite his house where Tim Champion was staying with his family.

Mr Champion used the property as a holiday home and told the court how McNally was visibly angry and swore about the cigarette butts. 

Mr Champion said he went back in to his flat to change out of his pyjamas as he felt ‘uncomfortable’ and said he would come back down to sort the problem out. 

When he came back down, McNally was outside the flat and had a four-inch steak knife in his right hand. 

Mr Champion tried to grab the knife and cut himself on the thumb doing so. 

He then backed away down the alley away from McNally who gestured with the knife towards him. Further down the alley, 
Mr Champion fell over a gate, grazing himself before he kicked the gate between themMcNally when the two men’s wives appeared to diffuse the situation. 

The court heard how McNally had a long-running issue with rubbish in the alley. Mr Champion said he was scared of what might happen to him.

Speaking in court, he said: “I was genuinely scared that I was going to get seriously injured, I was backing up from him, begging him to stop what he was doing.”

However, McNally disputed some of the facts of the case, with Ceri Harrison, mitigating, saying that Mr Champion was the angry one, who swore at McNally and instigated the altercation.

McNally also disputed that he was gesturing with the knife and that Mr Champion cut himself on it. 

In the stand McNally said that he simply panicked and was scared for his safety and that of his children in his house so when Mr Champion went upstairs he went in to his home and got the knife.

However, Anthony Bailey, prosecuting said that if he was scared he simply could have stayed in his house and locked the door. 

Judge Jonathan Fuller agreed with the prosecution and said that McNalley was the person responsible for the confrontation but recognised it was out of character for him.

McNally said he had acted ‘stupidly’ during the events. Judge Fuller recognised that McNally was of good character and the incident was out of character.