NEIGHBOURS have ended up in court in a bid to settle a bitter dispute over a garden hedge.

Engineer Paul Brough has already paid £20,000 in legal fees during the row over whether he should be allowed to cut the 20ft leylandii.

Mr Brough claimed that he owned the bushes.

He said that a former resident of his house, on the Darras Hall Estate in Ponteland, Northumberland, had planted the hedge more than ten years ago.

But neighbours Dr Patricia Smith and Dr Barry Hutchinson said the hedge was theirs and did not want it cut back, despite Mr Brough's opinion that the boundary between the two houses was 4ft out.

The two sides are expected to run up legal bills of thousands of pounds each to settle who owns the small patch of turf that contains the disputed hedge.

The doctors' barrister, David Mason, told Newcastle County Court yesterday that the pre-registry deeds to the house, which could settle the dispute in an instant, were missing.

Both sides are now due to meet in court and have each summoned expert witnesses to fight their case.

The trial, expected to last three days, continues.