A convicted bank robber and self-confessed heroin user has told Supreme Court he was the innocent victim of a sword attack.

Michael Eugene Dillas, 42, claims Fredjuan Eugene Hughes, 30, launched the assault while he was trying to return a friend's missing wallet.

"He just started swinging and I put my arms out to block him because he's trying to chop my head off," he told the jury hearing Hughes' trial yesterday.

Mr. Dillas spent three days in hospital, and required surgery to stitch and staple his arms and fingers back together.

Hughes denies wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The incident occurred on the evening of February 8 last year.

In her opening speech yesterday, Crown Counsel Takiyah Burgess said Mr. Dillas travelled on his bike to Glebe Road, Pembroke, trying to find a man called Dane who had found a friend's wallet.

She said Mr. Dillas stopped outside the defendant's home in Railway Terrace and asked some men if they knew where Dane was. Hughes rode into the yard on the back of a motorcycle and made threatening comments to him.

Ms Burgess claimed the defendant then disappeared inside his house, came out with a machete and attacked Mr. Dillas with it, causing him to fall off his bike. Mr. Dillas ran off towards St. Monica's Road, with Hughes in pursuit with the machete, but managed to flag down a truck driver who took him to hospital.

In his evidence yesterday, Mr. Dillas said he was not armed himself at the time, was not attacking anyone and did nothing to provoke an attack. He explained that he'd known Hughes for years from seeing him around the Spanish Point neighbourhood where he used to live.

Mr. Dillas described the weapon allegedly used against him as a sword, and described how his arms and fingers got cut as he defended himself from swings at his head.

"All my nerve endings and all my tendons was cut right to the bone. I was unable to move my fingers and I had to go to therapy. In fact I'm still doing therapy right now."

He told the jury he's been unable to work as a plumber since the incident, and complained: "This is what happens when you try to help somebody else."

Mr. Dillas said he'd last seen Hughes a week before the alleged attack, when Hughes appeared to think he was "coming onto" his girlfriend during a conversation in Court Street. He claimed that Hughes later told him the attack was because he'd disrespected him.

Cross-examining Mr. Dillas on his evidence, defence lawyer Saul Froomkin QC suggested his story was contradictory – and pressed him repeatedly over his long history of dishonesty.

Mr. Dillas rejected Mr. Froomkin's description of him as a "career criminal" but agreed he has previous convictions dating back to 1986, including receiving a stolen motorcycle, drug possession, and taking a motorcycle without consent. He was sentenced to ten years in jail for robbing a bank armed with a firearm in November 1999, and released on parole in March 2005.

Mr. Dillas said he used to be a heroin user, but was not sure if he was under the influence of the drug on the night in question. He agreed with Mr. Froomkin that he told Police three days afterwards that Hughes used a machete, rather than a sword as he was now telling the court.

"They're similar," he claimed. The case continues.