A teen suffered a broken jaw when he was hit on the head with a baseball bat outside a social club, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.

Niedel Swan needed a metal plate in his face after suffering a broken jaw and cheekbone, and he had his teeth wired for two weeks.

Rashad David George Cooper, 20, denies doing grievous bodily harm to Mr. Swan outside Hamilton Parish Workman's Club on April 10 last year.

Crown counsel Graveney Bannister said the jury would hear evidence that Cooper, of Fentons Drive, Pembroke, sneaked up on Mr. Swan, of Crawl, Hamilton Parish, from behind and hit him in the face with the baseball bat.

As Mr. Swan fell to the ground, Cooper continued to attack him with the baseball bat, Mr. Bannister told trial judge, Assistant Justice Archibald Warner.

Before the attack, Cooper was picking on another person at the club and Mr. Swan, who was 18 at the time of the attack, intervened to stop him kicking over a bike, the court heard.

Before leaving the club, Cooper said he was "going to come back and chase those Crawl guys off the club", said Mr. Bannister.

He said almost two months after the attack, during a session at Bailey's Bay Cricket Club, Cooper approached Mr. Swan and said: "What's happening man?

"What, are you pressing charges against me? You know I didn't mean to attack you with a baseball bat."

Dentist Dr. Laidlaw Fraser-Smith, who operated on Mr. Swan at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, said the victim suffered "moderate to severe facial injuries" which were "consistent with a forceful strike (from a) blunt instrument".

Dr. Mustansir Malik, an emergency doctor on duty at the hospital on the night Mr. Swan was brought in, admitted to Cooper's lawyer Craig Attridge that the victim was sedated because he was being violent and aggressive.

The jury was sent out during the afternoon for legal arguments which will continue this morning.