Jury hears man struck in head with machete in Faringdon

Machete man Todd Kent was said to have sliced the keys from the lanyard around his victim’s neck with the point of the weapon in a move redolent of silver screen swordsman Zorro.

The 55-year-old defendant allegedly then whacked him with the snub-nosed blade as the complainant crouched on the floor to pick up his house keys.

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Victim Danny Barron told jurors at Oxford Crown Court that his alleged attacker walked away almost immediately, threating he would cut his ‘f***ing head off’.

Mr Barron said the ‘warning’ was directed at him and two women with whom he had been talking at the corner of The Lees and Southampton Street, Faringdon, immediately before the attack at around 10.30am on June 8.

The motive for the attack was said to have concerned an alleged debt owed by the complainant. The debt was over a ‘bike wheel’, jurors were told, and the defendant previously had ‘words’ with him about it.

Giving evidence on Monday morning, Mr Barron said he had been standing on the street corner when he saw Kent – who was holding a walking stick – go past him and into his own flat. He did not say anything to him or the two women he was with, the complainant said.

Kent returned ‘two and a half to three minutes’ later carrying a machete with a silver gaffer-tape handle. CCTV from a neighbouring property had caught him leaving his flat with the item at 10.28am.

The machete found by police investigating Todd Kent's case (Image: CPS)

Carrying the machete by his side, as he approached Mr Barron he allegedly said ‘you’re out of order'.

He pointed the blade towards his chest in a ‘pushing motion’, the complainant said. The action was said to have caused Mr Barron's keys – worn on a lanyard around his neck – to fall to the floor.

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As he bent down to pick up his keys, he felt a ‘sharp pain’ to the back of his head and saw that he was bleeding. He removed his t-shirt to place over the wound.

Kent allegedly told him, in an apparent reference to the bike wheel debt, to ‘get it sorted’. “I said, ‘I’ll do what I can,’” he told the jury.

He denied suggestions, put to him by defence barrister Emma Hornby, that the keys had been tugged from his ‘quick release’ lanyard by Kent’s fist or that he had been getting up and his head struck the machete by accident.

The defendant was seen on CCTV leaving his flat shortly before 10.32am with a package wrapped in a plastic bag then returning 19 seconds later without the item. Police officers later found a machete wrapped in a plastic bag in an electrical box nearby.

Mr Barron wheeled his bike to a friend's house, from where the emergency services were called. He said he was treated by paramedics in the ambulance, with his wound cleaned and glued. He later went to his GP and was prescribed standard pain relief medication, he told jurors.

Kent, of The Lees, Faringdon, denies wounding with intent. The trial continues.

The view towards The Lees from Southampton Street in Faringdon (Image: Google)

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward