A disabled pensioner has been acquitted of assaulting a man 28 years his junior.

Keith Clement, 67, was yesterday cleared at Oxford Crown Court of causing actual bodily harm against the former husband of his son's new partner, Michael Stratton, 39. He had denied the charge.

Nigel Daley, prosecuting, accused Mr Clement of attacking Mr Stratton with a pick-axe handle in High Furlong, Banbury on November 18 last year.

Stratton suffered injuries to his head, arms and legs and testicles.

But Mr Clement claimed that Mr Stratton had approached him with a baseball bat and Mr Stratton was injured because he kicked him in the groin to save himself.

Mr Clement said: "I was desperate and thought if I went down I would be finished."

The fight ended when Vincent Webb, a 6ft 6in construction worker, took the weapon from Mr Clement and gave it to Mr Stratton's partner, Mrs Tucker.

James Mason, defending, called the police investigation into the attack "slipshod", saying Mr Clement was the real victim.

Mr Stratton hated Mr Clement because his wife, Elaine Stratton, had left him for Mr Mr Clement's son, Keith in 1999.

It was alleged in court that after the fight, Mrs Tucker used the handle to smash up a car belonging to Elaine Stratton, who lived nearby, causing £500 of damage.

She then went to Banbury Police Station, where Mr Clement was filing a complaint, raised the pick-axe handle above her head and had to be restrained from attacking him.

Mr Mason criticised the police for failing to provide Mr Clement with medical attention for a cut on his head before interviewing him and of losing CCTV evidence of Mrs Tucker threatening Mr Stratton in the police station.