A MAN accused of lashing out during a row over a stolen French bulldog claimed he never kicked his victim and only threw one punch in self defence.

Jack Ulett-Titcomb, of Lancut Road, Witney, is charged with one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Prosecutors allege that the 29-year-old kicked Ethan Perry in the head before punching him, fracturing his eye socket, at his Witney home on the afternoon of October 30, 2017.

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Ulett-Titcomb carried out the violent attack, jurors were told, while questioning his alleged victim about a pet dog – a French bulldog named Troy – which had previously been stolen from the defendant by unknown thieves.

As his trial at Oxford Crown Court continued today, Ulett-Titcomb took to the witness box to profess his innocence.

He told jurors: “[Mr Perry] assumed a fighting stance and I said something along the lines of 'are you sure you want to do that?', because he was stood there with his hands up.

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“I didn’t want to fight anyone in my house – especially around my children.”

Ulett-Titcomb said that he never kicked Mr Perry but accepted that he had thrown one punch.

He claimed that blow was out of self-defence after Mr Perry struck him on the chin once an argument ensued about the identity of who stole the canine.

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He added: “I don’t believe I hit him with serious force.”

During cross-examination prosecutor Edward Culver put to Ulett-Titcomb that he had kicked and punched Mr Perry in a ‘wholly unjustified and criminal assault’ after he ‘lost his temper’, an assertion which he denied.

The trial continues.