by Keith Hunt

Gary Treeby limped into court yesterday leaning on a stick and told of the moment he was beaten and shot in the leg.

Mr Treeby, who as well as owning Broadview Farm in Lidsing has a house in Princes Park, Chatham, said he and his brother Jack had earlier taken Jack Jnr, known as Jacko, home to Coombe Road, Tovil.

They were returning to the farm, he said, when Jack received a phone call from his brother-in-law.

They went back to Tovil to check on Jacko and then went to his sister Mary’s home in Quarry Road.

He stood outside the house drinking a cup of tea with Jack and sisters Alison and Mary Treeby and Caroline Morris.

“The next I knew I felt something hit my leg and I fell to the floor,” he said. “I heard a bang. I was shot in the leg. I remember falling to the floor, I remember being beat.

“I felt something hit me on the top of my head. I remember a few of them beating me.”

Asked by prosecutor Jonathan Higgs who he was talking about, he replied: “Those in the dock over there.”

Mr Treeby said he could remember George Treeby laughing at him. “I know his laugh,” he said.

Charity Treeby was there. “She was hitting me with something,” he continued. “It was something flat. I was lying down by this car.

“I lifted my left arm up to protect my face. She was hitting me a few times on my arm and other bits of my body. There was a few of them beating me.”

Mr Treeby said two of his attackers were wearing balaclavas, while Charity and George Treeby did not have their faces covered.

“I heard a car,” he said. “I heard someone say 'Let me in’. It was big Bill, my brother.

"The next thing I remember is a police lady running up and helping me.”

He was taken to Maidstone Hospital and then transferred to the Royal Hospital in London.

He said he had a hole in his leg. A bone was shattered and a pin had to be inserted from his hip to his kneecap.

He also had a broken left arm and cuts to his head and arms.

“I walk with a limp now,” he said. “I have only just started to get on one stick. At first, I was on crutches.”