Graeme Finlay, 53, is being tried in court for severely beating a senior couple who snubbed him at the dinner table on a Canary Islands cruise ship. The man, 70, suffered extensive facial injuries and the woman, 69, fractured two vertebrae.
Finlay sat with the couple and another couple but felt he had been snubbed after trying to make conversation.
He later found himself in a lift with the Phillips and said: "You ignored me, I want an apology."
Finlay claims that Mr Phillips' response was to tell him to "fuck off" and said the argument continued as they got out of the lift.
Finlay's barrister Peter Kilgour put it to Mr Phillips: "Mr Finlay walked away and you called him a rude wanker and lashed out at him with your crutch."
Mr Phillips replied: "No never in my life have I hit anyone, not even my wife, you can ask her."
