A BITTER dispute in Longtown over the smell of people smoking cannabis boiled over as a man spat into the face of a neighbour.

A prosecutor at Carlisle’s Rickergate court outlined how the issue between 34-year-old Mathew Burge and the neighbour came to a head on November 28 last year after the victim propped open a communal fire door.

The man later told police that this was something he regularly did in an attempt to dispel a strong smell of cannabis.

It was shortly before 5pm and Burge at the time was standing at the top of the stairs, from where he yelled at the man involved, demanding that he immediately shut the door.

The man walked away, going back to his flat, said Mrs Ward.

“But the defendant followed him and yelled at him again,” continued the prosecutor.

“The man said he can’t remember what the defendant was saying but he did say: ‘I don’t know what happens in your town but that’s what happens here.”

The victim – standing in the doorway to his flat - told Burge to stop smoking “weed” and the two men continued to shout and argue with each other until the flat’s occupier slammed his door closed.

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But when he heard another voice outside his flat – a person saying that she was recording the victim - the man shouted back that he had been recording the encounter for eight minutes.

It was after he opened the door again that Burge spat at him, his spittle landing on the man’s right cheek. The victim reacted by immediately slamming his door because he feared “immediate unlawful violence”, added Mrs Ward.

“I was shaking,” he later told police.

He said that he and his neighbour had been fighting constantly for eight or nine months and that he felt unsafe in his own home.

Andrew Gurney, defending, said the incident arose because of issues between the two men which were part of their neighbours’ dispute.

Burge, of Albert Street, Longtown, who had long-standing mental health issues, claimed that he had intervened in a violent domestic incident involving the victim and somebody else on an earlier occasion.

After this, things between the two neighbours deteriorated, said Mr Gurney. There was other relevant background, which preceded the incident outside the victim’s front door, said Mr Gurney.

The lawyer added: “The fire doors were left open and Mr Burge shut them. He knows he should not have retaliated; that he should not have spat at him but his life had become intolerable.

“He is remorseful and he says he would have been appalled if somebody had done that to him. But the [victim] has been moved as a result of this matter so there won’t be any issues going forward.”

Magistrates imposed a 12-month community order, with 10 rehabilitation activity days, as well as costs of £200, a fine of £225, and a £34 victim surcharge.

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