A WOMAN knocked unconscious by a neighbour after a simmering feud over a privet hedge and a wandering dog said last night: “I never imagined he was capable of such violence.”

Ann Caster, 57, was clubbed with a pick axe handle and punched as she was lying helpless on the ground by 44-year-old former banking executive Christopher Secker.

The shocking attack in Eston, near Middlesbrough, was captured on closed circuit television cameras and showed Secker sweep his neighbour’s legs from under her.

He smashed the 4ft wooden shaft into the side of her head and then leaned over her as he punched her, a judge at Teesside Crown Court was told.

It emerged during an assault court case that they had been locked in a bitter dispute for more than two years about a boundary between their two homes.

Mrs Caster, married to industrial welder Graham, liked to trim the bushy hedge between their two properties, while Secker wanted it to grow tall.

The argument exploded into violence when a West Highland terrier Secker had been looking after escape and was found whimpering by Mrs Caster near her home.

Secker accused his neighbour of trying to steal the ten-month-old little white dog and marched over carrying the axe shaft, said Penny Bottomley, prosecuting.

In an attack captured on CCTV, Secker struck Mrs Caster on the temple with the wooden lump and tried to grab the dog from her grasp and swung it around.

Her screams brought further pandemonium as two of her five sisters - who all live in the street - came rushing out to help, along with one of their husbands.

Geraldine Morley, 58, and Christine Tranter, 53, set about Secker as their sister lay on the drive of Mrs Tranter’s home in driving sleet on a night in November last year.

The episode, which shocked the smart suburban housing estate in Eston, brought a shameful end to a sharp decline in once-successful Secker’s fortunes.

He had worked as a business banker for both Barclays and the Bank of Scotland, with a list of 300 “high worth” clients, some of whom had £10m turnovers.

But after losing his job in finance through redundancy he became depressed, eventually putting money into a franchise of the dog-minding service Petpals.

Secker, who lives with wife Jan, had been looking after the young Westie when it escaped from his property and was found by Mrs Caster.

Judge James Brown described the assault as “an astonishing piece of behaviour” and told Secker that he had dodged jail by “a very small margin”.

After the case, Mrs Caster said: “We originally fell out over the privet hedge.

“He did childish things like throwing branches onto my roof and threatening me with solicitors but I never imagined he was capable of such violence.

“I’m a dog owner myself and when I heard the little Westie whimpering I went to help it and contacted the owner. I told her I had the dog and would look after it until she could pick it up.

“But she must have passed that on to Secker because he was supposed to be looking after it and he came looking for me.

“He tried to grab the poor dog and swung it off its feet and then clubbed me over the head with the wood he was carrying and kicked my feet from under me. He continued to beat me until my sisters came to my rescue.

“This is a nice street where people look after their homes and look out for their neighbours, but his actions were outrageous and I think he deserved to go to prison for what he did to me and also for traumatising the poor little dog.

“This has had a lasting effect on all of us.”