A COWLEY Road bar owner has gone on trial accused of attacking a customer with a hacksaw.

Hugh Anderson, who runs the Hi Lo Jamaican Eating House, denies wounding with intent and an alternative charge of unlawful wounding.

Jurors at Oxford Crown Court yesterday heard the 67-year-old cut Sean Tizard across the face and chest in an attack directly outside the East Oxford venue.

Mr Tizard said he came to Oxford from London to see a friend and they had been to three pubs and a private party before going to Hi Lo at about 1am on October 3 last year.

He admitted drinking from 6pm and being drunk, but said he had eaten two meals during the evening and was not “falling-over drunk”.

Describing his reaction to the alleged attack, he said: “I remember just being very shocked. I’ve lived most of my life in big cities, in rougher parts of cities, and I came to Oxford, which I assumed was a middle-class, affluent sort of place, and somebody attacked me with a hacksaw.”

Mr Tizard told jurors his friend William Green was refused service at the bar when they arrived.

He said: “They wouldn’t serve Will because they said he was too drunk and we should leave.

“I didn’t think we were that drunk. I remember walking up there with him, we were chatting — we were drunk, but I wasn’t falling all over the place — and having a conversation about reggae music with someone.”

Mr Tizard said another man, not Anderson, was “rude and aggressive” in escorting him out of the venue before he and Mr Green began walking away from the bar.

He said: “Then in my peripheral vision I saw him (Anderson) come at me with something in his hand which was kind of metallic.”

Mr Tizard suffered cuts to his face, hands and chest and said his T-shirt had been sliced open.

Peter Lownds, defending, said Mr Tizard had gone into a DJ booth which was not open to customers and had claimed to be from Brixton and that the music was poor.

Mr Tizard replied: “I’m not from Brixton, why would I say that?”

Mr Lownds said Anderson told Mr Tizard to “go back to Brixton” before Mr Tizard pushed him to the floor, was thrown out of the venue and then stripped topless, performed press-ups on the pavement and then made monkey gestures at the window.

Mr Tizard called the accusations “ridiculous”.

He added he had a black aunt, lived in a multi-cultural area and was a social worker.

Mr Lownds said Mr Tizard had mistakenly identified Anderson as the attacker. The trial continues.