A FORMER soldier accused of hacking a man to the bone with a machete when violence flared in a residential street told a jury he had no weapons with him and fled after seeing his friend stabbed in the leg.

Aron Barton, who served in Northern Ireland with the Royal Logistic Corps, said he went to his ex-girlfriend’s house to make peace and negotiate payment after members of her family damaged his car.

Barton, 28, of Bolton Road, Bradford, denies wounding Louis Waddington with intent to do him grievous bodily harm in St John Street, Brighouse, and an alternative lesser offence of unlawful wounding.

He also pleads not guilty to threatening Mr Waddington and James Casey with a crossbow and assaulting Shonagh Waddington by beating her. Barton allegedly attacked Mr Waddington with a machete, severely damaging his right hand and slicing his right leg to the bone.

Mr Waddington, 33, needed an operation at Bradford Royal Infirmary to repair an extensive laceration to his hand. Arteries and tendons had been damaged and his finger broken.

The jury has been told he has convictions for affray, common assault, threatening behaviour and damaging a neighbour’s car with a hammer.

Barton, who handed himself into the police the following day, said he was employed as a wagon driver and sign fitter after leaving the army.

He and Miss Waddington had been in a “volatile” on and off relationship in which he called the police on one occasion because she had locked him in the house and was throwing plates at him.

After they split up, she was jealous because he had met someone else, he stated.

On the morning of August 13 last year, Barton said Miss Waddington “kicked off” and tried to grab his phone after his new girlfriend called him. She fell down in the squabble, but he did not attack her.

When he drove her home to Brighouse, Miss Waddington told her step-father, James Casey, he had beaten her up.

Mr Casey punched him to the head and a teenager smashed his car windscreen and struck the bonnet with a baseball bat.

Barton said he returned to the address with two friends later that day to “make the peace” and to sort out payment for his damaged car. He owed money on the vehicle and needed it for work, he said. He told Bradford Crown Court he saw Mr Waddington attacking his friend, Dominic Crossley, with a blade so he picked up a crossbow that was lying on a wall but put it down again. He grappled with Mr Waddington but then he saw someone armed with a nail gun and so he ran off. The trial continues.