Gardai feared for their lives as they were attacked with a hatchet and told they were going to be "cut to f. . .ing pieces", Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told.
Derek Lodge, of Kilworth Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, pleaded not guilty to two counts of assault on gardai, two counts of wielding an implement likely to intimidate gardai and a further charge of possession of an offensive weapon at his home on December 8th, 1997.
Garda Richard O'Kelly told prosecuting counsel Mr Brendan Grehan that he and Garda Jim Cunningham were called to the Lodge family home. They were met by the defendant's father, Mr Derek Lodge senior, who looked shaken and had a cut on his forehead.
A car in the drive had been covered in grey paint and a glass panel on the front door had been smashed.
He and Garda Cunningham went to a back bedroom upstairs.
Lodge emerged from the room and told the gardai that he would cut them to pieces. He swung at Garda Cunningham with a hatchet and punched him in the stomach.
Garda O'Kelly said he drew his baton for self-defence. Lodge smiled at him and again said that he would "cut him to f. . .ing pieces". As Lodge swung with the hatchet, Garda O'Kelly stepped back and the hatchet hit the wall above his head. He decided to flee and jumped down the stairs. Three squad cars and an armed response unit later arrived but Lodge had fled the house.
Garda Cunningham told defence counsel Mr Sean Holt that on the following Saturday, he and a number of other gardai searched Lodge's room. A weighing scales and a hash pipe were taken away but tested negative for drugs. He denied that gardai had smashed Lodge's head against a glass door panel.
In his evidence, Lodge said that his father was "like a vegetable" on the night of the offence. He had been drinking and had taken many pills. His father was often violent and had frequently beaten him as a child.
The defendant said he was woken in the middle of the night and dragged out of bed. It was dark and he grabbed an implement from a box of unsold bric-abrac he sold from a market stall. Two men fled the room and he later noticed they were gardai.
He told them he had committed no crime and that they had no arrest warrant. When the gardai left, he couldn't sleep and decided to go for a walk with his dog.
His arrest a number of days later involved many gardai and was "like something from telly".
The trial continues before Judge Frank O'Donnell and a jury.