Bad blood between brothers ended in injury when it reached boiling point after years of no contact.

Martin Hedley, formerly of Newport, now care of Madeira Villas, Exmouth, Devon, stood trial at Haverfordwest magistrates court on Wednesday, April 24.

The court heard Hedley’s brother, Jason Sheard, was at home Clunderwen with his girlfriend on July 7, when Mr Sheard became aware that someone else was in the room.

Hedley, 43, launched himself at the victim stating: “You ruined my life”, and began punching and strangling him.

Mr Sheard stuck his finger in his brother’s eye to stop the assault, as he feared he would be caused serious injury.

Hedley claimed his brother was the aggressor after he spotted him by chance while travelling through the village on his motorbike and stopped to speak to him in a bid to ‘clear the air’, but had not previously known where he lived.

Prosecutor Dennis Davies told the court that the brothers had not seen each other for years, and there was a history of bad feeling between the pair.

He added that police became involved after Hedley sent a threatening text message several months earlier.

Jason Sheard said: “He was hitting me and carried on hitting me until I was on the floor with him sitting on me.”

Mr Sheard added that he started to struggle to breath during the struggle.

“At one point I thought ‘I’m going to die now’, this guy had threatened to kill me and here he is now.

“I managed to get my hand in his eye socket and had to squeeze with everything I had to make him let go.”

Mr Sheard managed to get on top of Hedley and attempted to reason with him, before putting him in a choke-hold to subdue him.

The court heard that Hedley left the house covered in blood and spent time in hospital as a result of the incident. He told the court that he was unable to work for six weeks, after he suffered an orbital blow-out, broken cheek bone, broken nose and a chipped tooth.

Magistrates found Hedley guilty of assault and sentenced him to 80 hours of unpaid work.

Hedley, who was previously of clean character, was ordered to pay £725 in costs and a surcharge and a restraining order was imposed prohibiting him from contacting his brother or his partner.