A ruling is expected next month for three siblings accused of attacking a senior over a contract dispute.

Pernell Grant, 43, along with his brother Dominic Grant, 41, and sister Lauren Grant, 44, are standing trial for assaulting Leslie Pryce on October 3, 2005.

They have all denied the charges, although Pernell Grant admitted earlier this year that he did punch the 64-year-old in the mouth and on Monday in his closing submissions at his lawyer, Rick Woolridge said it was provoked.

Mr. Woolridge, who is representing Pernell Grant, said: “Though there were longstanding issues between Mr. Pryce and their mother. It was events on that day that finally provoked him.

“To find his mother in tears and upset — it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Magistrates’ Court had heard that the siblings grew angry when their mother told them she may have entered into a $30,000 contract with her tenant, Mr. Pryce, to finish renovations on a home in Smith’s she owned. Mr. Pryce, an upholsterer by trade, had told Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo the attack on him occurred outside his then home in Somersall Lane, Smith’s, which was near Millicent Grant’s home, the mother of the three defendants.

He said he was sitting outside reading the newspaper when he saw Lauren Grant nearby on her cell phone. Not long after that, he said, Pernell and Dominic turned up.

Mr. Pryce claimed Lauren Grant went inside her mother’s house before dashing out and asking him: “Why do you have my mother signing a contract?”

Mr. Pryce said he did not reply to Lauren Grant’s question, and carried on reading his paper. But the next thing he saw, she raised a concrete block over her head — causing him to shift in order to avoid being hit. He said it splintered on the ground and described Grant’s demeanour at the time as “very very angry. She was in a rage”.

Lauren Grant denies ever throwing the brick and on Monday her lawyer Victoria Pearman, who represents Lauren and Dominic Grant, said in her closing submissions that both of her clients were not involved in the attack. Ms Pearman said: “If she had thrown a concrete block, it would have hit him as she was only four feet away. And after Mr. Pryce gets popped by her brother she helps him up and tries to get him some ice.

“Lauren Grant was a witness of truth and at no point was she shaking because she told it as it was.”

And on Dominic Grant, who was accused by Mr. Pryce of punching him in the face and saying “let’s finish him off”, Ms Pearman called him a ‘Prince of Peace’.

“He is a big guy and if he had punched Mr. Pryce there would be physical evidence of it,” she said. “He should not be here and the case against him is malicious.”

Crown counsel Nicole Smith, however, said these attacks were premeditated, because Lauren Grant has to call her brothers in order to bring them over to their mother’s house.

Ms Smith said: “The complainant did not do anything for Pernell to lash out that day and he did not say anything at all to Lauren. But she was talking on the phone in an attempt to all meet there, therefore, there was no provocation — it was premeditated.”

Mr. Tokunbo adjourned the case until July 5 when he will make a ruling.