International sailor Peter Bromby yesterday called his neighbour Henry Talbot a “liar” as his assault and threatening words case in Magistrates' Court wound down.

Summations are expected from Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson and defence lawyer Richard Horseman before Acting Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo.

Bromby, 40, of East Shore Road, Sandys, Bromby said a Police Officer told him to get rid of a piece of pipe he was holding in Sandys on May 16, 2004.

However, Police testified this did not happen and they had no idea that Bromby and his brother John (Bo) Bromby had been carrying a pipe and hoe-handle.

Police conceded they might not have seen their neighbour Henry Talbot as the main agitator if they had seen the Brombys carrying “weapons”.

Mr. Talbot was arrested for obstructing Police on the beach at Gilbert's Bay. Peter and his brother John deny assaulting and threatening to kill Mr. Talbot. The Bromby brothers allegedly told Mr. Talbot: “They would lay him out flat there” and “If you don't move those boulders I will kill you on the spot”.

Mr. Talbot testified on Thursday that “Peter took a pipe and jabbed him in his groin and stomach area”.

However, in court yesterday, Bromby called Mr. Talbot a “liar”.

Bromby said he took the three-foot, metal pipe down to the beach because he felt the situation could escalate, but put it on a bank to collect it when he went home.

“One of the Policeman advised me to put it down when they first arrived,” Bromby said. “They said before we continue the discussion I had to put it down.”

Bromby said this happened before Mr. Talbot was arrested.

However, P.c. Suzanne DeSilva, who was one of the first Police Officers to arrive at the scene said she never saw the pipe.

“That did not happen at all,” she testified yesterday. She said she never told the Bromby's to put their weapons down and that if she saw them, she would have considered them to be more of a danger than the “belligerent” Mr. Talbot.

She said she would be surprised to hear that Police told them to put the pipes down. “It did not happen in my presence,” she said.

Bromby said things became “confrontational” at the beach once he saw the size and positioning of the Mr. Talbot had ordered an excavator to place near a right-of-way. Bromby said he confronted Mr. Talbot on public property. And he said Mr. Talbot never made any move to leave the beach but “stayed and argued”.

Bromby was ten feet away from Mr. Talbot when he was arguing with him, he said.

“I never threatened Mr. Talbot with the pipe or attempt to gab him in the stomach as he alleged,” Bromby said. “It remained by my side or behind my back the whole time. I didn't take it as a weapon I took it as protection against the four people on the beach.”

P.c. DeSilva said when she arrived at the beach shortly after 11 a.m. on the day in question, Mr. Talbot was the “more aggressive and boisterous” of the three arguing men.

“Mr. Talbot was shouting directly into my face and waving his hands in my face,” she said. “He was extremely obstructive, so I arrested him.”

Roslyn Lima, said she was living with John Bromby and took pictures of the incident because Peter Bromby told her to.

Under cross-examination, Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson asked Ms Lima whether she saw the Bromby's waving sticks around.

Ms Lima said she was not sure what was in their hands, because they were held at their sides. Derek Simons testified that he saw the bulldozer moving boulders and told the Bromby's. Mr. Smith said before the Bromby's set out for the beach they looked angry. “Their faces were red,” he said.

Mr. Simons said he stopped at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach and the Bromby's carried on.

And he said he did not see the Bromby brothers strike Mr. Talbot with a pipe.