Norlane dad Thomas Kenyon admits bashing Salvia St neighbour with baseball bat

A Norlane man was placed in an induced coma, has been left partially deaf and could have died after a long-simmering feud turned physical, a court has heard.

A NORLANE dad has admitted launching a near-fatal baseball bat attack on his neighbour.

Thomas Kenyon, 27, was embroiled in an ongoing feud with his Salvia St neighbours when tensions boiled over into extreme violence earlier this year.

The County Court on Friday heard Kenyon used a baseball bat to deliver two blows to the head of the 28-year-old victim after an argument led to several men wielding weapons.

The victim was placed in an induced coma after the attack and it is likely he would have died without medical intervention, the court was told.

Kenyon, a father of four, has pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury.

Thomas Kenyon attacked his neighbour with a baseball bat. Picture: Facebook

Court documents reveal the neighbourhood dispute had been simmering for about one year when the attack happened around midday on February 16.

Kenyon had just returned home from a trip to the milk bar when he confronted the victim’s mother after being told she had threatened his partner a day earlier.

The victim heard the commotion outside and emerged from his home brandishing a vacuum cleaner pipe, while another man at the scene armed himself with a hunting knife.

After being outnumbered and spotting the weapons, Kenyon instructed his partner to retrieve a baseball bat from the front of their home.

A physical confrontation ensued with each of the men lunging with their weapons.

The fracas briefly stopped and the victim was walking back to his house when Kenyon struck him twice to the back of the head.

A local resident who witnessed the fracas later told police she could hear the sound of the bat striking the victim from inside her bedroom.

The man was bleeding and in and out of consciousness when police arrived.

He had surgery to relieve pressure on his brain and was left with injuries including bone fractures, severe deafness in one ear and post-traumatic amnesia that lasted more than a month.

A report prepared by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine revealed the victim “would have died or, at the very least, suffered significant brain injury” without medical intervention.

Kenyon was arrested on the day of the attack and initially claimed he was acting in self-defence.

Judge Clare Quin remanded Kenyon in custody for sentencing in February next year.

Originally published as Norlane dad Thomas Kenyon admits bashing Salvia St neighbour with baseball bat