VIOLENCE put a dampener on a garden barbecue celebration and resulted in at least one guest facing court proceedings.

Defendant Tony Irwin appeared at a plea hearing at Durham Crown Court on charges arising from events at the barbecue staged in a neighbouring property in Strangeways Street, Seaham, on Monday May 21.

He is alleged to have caused a disturbance before threatening another barbecue-goer in the street outside with an ornamental sword.

Thirty-two-year-old Mr Irwin is charged with affray, by using or threatening unlawful violence to another, and threatening a person with an article with a blade or point, in a public place, namely a Samurai-type sword in Strangeways Street, causing an immediate risk of serious harm being caused.

After he denied both charges, his counsel, Lewis Kerr, was asked by Judge Christopher Prince what his defence would be to the allegations.

Mr Kerr said: “He says it didn’t happen and that the account given of the incident in the street with the sword was fabrication.

“He was at a barbecue in which he was bitten on the finger by another man and he received some assistance in the property where the barbecue was taking place, and eventually police turned up.

“But he says the alleged incident in the street later just did not take place.”

Mr Kerr said his client has moved out of are area since the incident last month.

A trial date, with a one-day-plus estimate, was agreed and the defendant, who is bailed to an address in Barmston, Washington, must return for that hearing, starting at the court, on Tuesday September 11.