A jury at Birmingham Crown Court took just over two hours to return a guilty verdict on Sandor Bata, from Humberstone, Leicester.

Mr Justice Butterfield said to Bata: "You armed yourself with a deadly weapon and you used it with deadly effect against a neighbour who had done nothing more than put his clippings somewhere he shouldn't have done.

"It was a dreadful, tragic and terrible offence."

Hungarian-born Bata, who denied murder, shot Michael Willson, 63, at close range at their allotment in Leicester.

He had blamed Mr Willson for ruining his lawn by allegedly dumping clematis cuttings on his land.

'I was afraid'

He said he and grandfather Mr Willson, also from Leicester, had had a number of disagreements over their allotments, which bordered each other.

He told the court that on the day of the shooting Mr Willson had warned him that he was going to "sort him out".

Bata, who fought for Hungary in World War II and during the 1957 uprising against the Soviets, said Mr Willson had hit him twice with a piece of wood before he managed to step back and shoot him.

But he said he had not intended to kill Mr Willson and had only wanted to hit him in the shoulder.

Asked by Stephen Linehan QC, defending, why he fired, he said: "Because he wanted to kill me. I was afraid."

Single wound

John Milmo, prosecuting, told the court that following a brief argument, Bata had gone to his shed, fetched a pistol he kept hidden, returned and fired a shot at Mr Willson.

Mr Willson, a retired mechanic, died from a single wound which punctured his lung after the incident on 11 August last year.

Mr Willson's next-door neighbour, Roland Cross, told the court he heard the pair arguing shortly before the sound of a gunshot.

He said: "The foreign gentleman said "If you come over here I will kill you". He said that twice."

'No sympathy'

Bata was arrested when he gave himself up to police at 2150 BST on the same day of the shooting, the court was told.

He was carrying a plastic bag containing the gun - a nine-millimetre semi automatic pistol - used in the shooting.

Firearms expert Malcolm Fletcher has told the court it was estimated the gun had been fired from as close as 18 inches to as far as six feet away.

Outside the court Cecilia Geary, the aunt of Mr Willson's widow, Jacqueline, said she was pleased with the sentence.