A man accused of killing his neighbour's dog following a long-running feud had previously threatened to make her "life a misery", a court has heard.

Tricia Wales, 60, of Yapton near Arundel, is funding a private prosecution alleging criminal damage against Hill after he hit her five-year-old border terrier Wurzel with a garden hoe.

Chichester Magistrates' Court heard the blow fractured the bitch's skull, causing it to haemorrhage, and the animal had to be put down due to the extent of its injuries.

Hill has admitted striking the animal after it strayed on to his property, which adjoined Miss Wales's. However he denies he meant to kill the dog on September 21 last year.

Opening the case for the prosecution, Miss Wales's solicitor Richard Orridge said relations between his client and Hill, who lived next door to one another in a row of terraced cottages, were fine at first when Hill moved in around four years before the incident took place.

Mr Orridge said Miss Wales, who lived in the cottage with her 15-year-old son George, Wurzel and two other border terriers, Kylie and Charlie, did her best to secure the hedge that separated their gardens after one of her's dogs left mess in his Hill's garden.

With a shaking voice, Miss Wales described how she and Hill had disagreed over a right of way she was entitled to use through his back garden. She only used it to take her rubbish out but one day found he had erected a gate with a lock. The mother-of-three said when she asked for a key, he responded by telling her, "I hate you, I want to get rid of you. I want to get away from you as quickly as I can, you and your rats," adding that she took this to mean her dogs.

Miss Wales said she did not see him again until the following week. She had gone to the shops to buy some potatoes for Sunday lunch and on her return found Wurzel lying unconscious on her doorstep. She carried the animal into the house and cradled it in her arms, after which Hill came in and said: "That's what I do to rats when they come in my garden."

Magistrates heard the police were later called after Miss Wales's former partner John Bain, 62, went next door to confront Hill. Hill is alleged to have told Bain: "I wish I'd killed the lot of them" and Bain attacked him, for which he accepted a caution.

Company director Hill, who has now moved to Copse Lane, Walberton, denies a charge of criminal damage.