There is no evidence against a man accused of chopping a convicted bank robber with a sword – except the "bald-faced lie" of his accuser.

That was the claim from lawyer Saul Froomkin QC, defending Fredjuan Hughes against a charge of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm yesterday.

In evidence earlier this week, victim Michael Dillas told the Supreme Court that Hughes attacked him last February 8, possibly in the belief that he'd come onto his girlfriend by lending her his i-Pod.

Both the accused and the accuser have past convictions for serious violence.

Mr. Dillas claimed that after attempting to chop him in the head, leaving him with wounds to his hands and arms from defending himself, Hughes chased him up St. Monica's Road with the weapon.

He managed to outrun his attacker and flag down a passing truck driver who took him to the hospital. Mr. Dillas estimated that the incident took place between 8 p.m. and 8.30 p.m., although his hospital notes show he was not admitted until 10.22 p.m, when he was under the influence of heroin.

Before evidence in the case concluded yesterday, the jury heard from Hughes' girlfriend of four years, Shernelle Moniz. She claimed that she did not know Mr. Dillas before he accused her boyfriend, but he'd subsequently attempted to extort $6,000, then $10,000 from them in exchange for dropping the case.

Ms Moniz, 25, said that after several visits to their home from Mr. Dillas, she sought advice from her boyfriend's then-lawyer Craig Attridge before recording further visits with a digital recorder.

On one occasion, she said: "Mr. Dillas said if I don't pink up then my children's not going to have no father."

She told the jury they refused to pay Mr. Dillas any cash.

Mr. Dillas claimed that the voice on the recordings – which have been played to the jury – is not his. However, in his closing speech yesterday, Mr. Froomkin described this as a "bald-faced lie" and asked them to clear Hughes' name.

The lawyer said there were two indisputable facts in the case – that Mr. Dillas had been chopped up by someone, and that it is his voice on the recordings.

"The sole issue in this case is 'was it Mr. Hughes that chopped up Mr. Dillas?' and you have no evidence, no evidence against Mr. Hughes except what Mr. Dillas says. There's no independent witnesses, there's no forensic evidence, there's not a single piece of evidence to corroborate what he says. You have to rely on his word – the word of a convicted bank robber, a thief, a drug user. In fact, you know that on that very night he was using heroin. Did that affect him in any way?"

He pointed out that Mr. Dillas originally reported to the Police and doctors that he'd been attacked with a machete, then told the jury during the trial that it was a sword,

"A sword is as different from a machete as a horse is from a candle," Mr. Froomkin told the jury, reiterating Mr. Dillas' evidence that he'd been attacked in a well-lit area, with the culprit standing right in front of him.

However, in her closing speech, Crown counsel Takiyah Burgess insisted that the man responsible was indeed Hughes.

"He saw him quite clearly. He was right up in his face. There was no doubt he recognised the man who attacked him as Fredjuan," she told the jury.

Mr. Dillas subsequently picked Hughes out of an ID parade.

Referring to Hughes' violent past, which includes convictions for assaulting Police officers and hitting a man over the head with a pipe, Ms Burgess described him as someone well-able to look after himself if Mr. Dillas had falsely accused him and tried to extort money.

"Demanding money off someone who didn't do it? He would have got beaten right there wouldn't he?" she said.

Hughes denies assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves is due to begin summing up the case for the jury today.