A FARMER said he was frightened as he attempted to move a car blocking the entrance to his land.

Robert Hooper told a court that he had been confronted and punched twice by the passenger of the Vauxhall Corsa after asking him and the driver to move the vehicle.

When they refused, Mr Hooper said he told the younger men: “If you won’t move it, I will.”

Read more: Trial opens for Teesdale farmer accused of moving car with tractor

Mr Hooper returned to his farmhouse, at Brockersgill Farm, Newbiggin-in-Teesdale, and got into a loader vehicle to which he attached some forks.

With his “heart racing” he told a jury at Durham Crown Court that he drove it back down the drive to move the car.

Asked by defence counsel Michael Rawlinson what his motive was, he said he just wanted the car moved.

Mr Hooper said: “I felt threatened. An Englishmen’s home is his castle and my castle starts at the front gate.”

After a final request for the men to move the car he began to push it from the drive, using the loader.

He said as he did so it caught on the gate post, causing it to lift up and tilt 90-degrees.

Despite coming under further attack by the car passenger, knocking his glasses off, he left the now damaged Corsa on the verge next to the road outside the farm and drove back to the farmhouse, where he locked himself in as his partner was ringing the police.

He said for the next 20 minutes he felt, “like a sitting duck”, with the car passenger outside pulling fence posts out and ranting, until the arrival of police.

In cross-examination prosecution counsel, David Ward, asked the farmer for his weight and height, to which Mr Hooper replied, “around 100kg and 6ft3in.”

Mr Ward said: “You’re quite a big bloke, you are quite imposing.”
The defendant replied: “I certainly don’t look for confrontation and I’m certainly not a fighter.”

Asked by Mr Ward why he did not turn the loader around before he flipped the car, Hooper said: “I did what I did to prevent something worse happening.”

Judge Ray Singh asked if Mr Hooper thought that by pushing the car over it would calm the two men down, to which he replied: “Probably not. I was under threat.”

Mr Hooper, 57, who has no convictions, denies dangerous driving and damaging property, in the incident at 5.30pm on Saturday June 5, last year.

Proceeding.

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