A FORMER Green Howard soldier accused of murdering a neighbour by knifing him 26 times with a Gurkha kukri knife told a court yesterday that the man's account of their bitter feud was not accurate.

Roy Campbell, 61, appearing at Teesside Crown Court, was referring to Ronald Hanley's diary of despair about the row between the two.

Mr Hanley wrote that Campbell bared his backside to him as he walked past their caravan homes, in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool.

The diary added: "How revolting. I called him a perverted bastard."

Cross-examined by Franz Muller, prosecuting, Mr Campbell said: "It never happened. That is a total invention."

He agreed that there was trouble between them, which he described as: "Six of one and half a dozen of the other".

His wife, Olive, told the jury that she saw Mr Hanley on top of her husband, on their broken fence, on the night of the killing.

But she agreed with Mr Muller that she stated to police that, when she went out, her husband was standing over Mr Hanley.

Mr Campbell denies a charge of murdering him on April 17 last year at the Elm Tree Caravan Park.

The trial continues today.