A man accused of pretending to be a police officer and attacking a man in Herne Bay has been cleared by a jury this afternoon (Friday).

Daniel Twyman, 28, was found not guilty of grevious bodily harm following a trial at Canterbury Crown Court.

The court had been told that a man was left with a bleed on his brain after two hooded men pretending to be police burst into his home and beat him with a bat.

It was alleged that Colin Appleton was battered with the weapon and a can of drink concealed inside a glove during the attack at his home in Herne Bay.

Twyman was accused of being one of the men who arrived at the house on April 11 last year shouting: "Open up, it's the police!"

Mr Appleton - who identified Twyman - told Canterbury Crown Court he was watching TV when he heard voices and very loud banging.

“I opened the door up and I saw Daniel with someone standing behind him, and he just said ‘hello bruv’," he said.

“He kicked me in the chest. I felt what I thought was a punch, I kept my balance, and then I got pummelled until I completely lost my balance.

“Then they just laid into me."

The jury was told the men assaulted Mr Appleton with his own baseball bat and a glove containing the drink can.

Prosecutor Vivian Walters said in her opening speech: “He saw the second man had hold of a bat. He recognised the bat, it was kept behind his front door.

“He said he picked up a sword – he said he did that to scare away the two men.

“However, one of them hit him on the head with a bat, he fell to the floor and the second man attacked him again.

“One man left behind the can with the glove.”

She added Mr Appleton was treated at Ashford’s William Harvey Hospital for bleeding on the brain.

He also suffered a broken eye socket and fractured cheekbone following the alleged assault on April 11 last year.

Twyman, of Forty Acres Road, Canterbury - who previously lived in the same property and is known to Mr Appleton - denied causing grievous bodily harm at a previous hearing.

The court heard ill-feeling flared between the two after a row over loud music sometime before 2015, Miss Walters explained.

Mr Appleton said he reprimanded one of Twyman’s young relatives for fussing over his cat, Rafa, in the corridor days before the alleged assault.

He explained: “I said ‘oi, leave him alone'.

“The grandmother started shouting at me ‘don’t talk to my grandson like that.’

Miss Walters asked: “How did she sound? Did anything else happen?”

Mr Appleton replied: “Angry. She came down to my front door saying ‘I know you are in there, I’ve just seen you open your back door."

When Miss Walters asked if Mr Appleton answered the door or had growing concerns he replied “no”.

But Twyman’s girlfriend Jemma Burgess told the court he had been at home with her all evening on the night Mr Appleton was injured, on April 11 last year.

She said she arrived home at about 7pm after visiting her grandfather, who was seriously ill in hospital.

Twyman was there and comforted her, she told the jury. She told the jury: “Dan stayed with me in the house the entire evening.”

She said she did not know Mr Appleton. Vivian Walters, prosecuting, said: “Dan did go out that evening and you are protecting him by giving him an alibi.”

Miss Burgess said: “No, Dan was there all the time.”

The jury unanimously found Twyman not guilty.

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