A 34-year-old man yesterday denied that he unlawfully assaulted his elderly father causing him bodily harm.The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, testified in Magistrates’ Court that he cursed at his father but he never laid a hand on him.The alleged offence occurred on April 1, 2011 when the defendant was 32; his father is now 86.He further denies unlawfully damaging a pair of prescription glasses worth more than $60 belonging to his father.The case is one of the first to be brought under the Senior Abuse Register Act 2008, following an altercation between the defendant and his older brother in their father’s home.If convicted, his name would be placed on the Senior Abuse Register and he would face a maximum fine of $10,000, a maximum three-year jail term or both.The defendant told the court that he was not proud of the fact that he cursed at his father but he denied that he caused physical wounds to his father’s arm, back and neck.A fight ensued with his older brother following a heated argument between the defendant and his father.The defendant said his brother knocked on the door during the argument with a wooden handle of a hoe in his hand.He testified that when it looked like his brother was going to take a swing at him, the two of them tussled and his father jumped on his back to try to break it up.“My dad had me around the waist pulling me back, my sister came upstairs and her husband broke us up,” he said.He left the premises and returned later to “humbly apologise” to his father later that night.He told the court that he and his father have argued in the past, but never to the point that he “cursed at him or anything like that”.Earlier the older brother denied that he had a hoe handle in his hand, he said it was a wooden handle of an axe.He told the court that he went upstairs to see what was going on and that he grabbed the wooden handle because his knuckles were getting raw from knocking on a locked door.The dispute centred around a parking space for a car owned by the girlfriend of the older brother. The father has also testified.Asked how it felt to hear his father testify that he was abused, the defendant replied: “It hurt my feelings to know that he would come here and swear on a Bible and lie, I couldn’t believe it.“I think he got manipulated into doing it, my brother can talk my dad into doing anything,” he said.He further denied that he choked his father and pushed him down.He is represented by lawyer Victoria Pearman. Nicole Smith appears for the Crown before Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo.The defendant returns to court on Friday for cross examination. Ms Pearman indicated that she intends to call two or three witnesses to testify.