Trevor Scott was found guilty of intentionally causing injury to another man which left him with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

Scott was also found guilty of criminal damage. However, the jury found him not guilty of recklessly causing serious injury to victim William Tree.

The County Court jury retired at noon on Tuesday after Judge Duncan Allen finished delivering his final instructions.

Scott, 21, pleaded not guilty to the charges relating to an assault in Leawarra Cresent during the afternoon of September 21, 2013.

Scott was accused of hitting Mr Tree, who woke from a coma in a Melbourne hospital. Before making its verdict, the jury returned to the court room to ask a question to ensure they understood the correct definition of a serious injury. Judge Allen told the jury “a serious injury is an injury which endangers life”. 

During the County Court trial in Ballarat the jury heard Mr Tree, 47, had been socialising with friends out the front of his Delacombe home when a car, driven by Scott, was seen speeding erratically driving down the street.

Crown prosecutor Ruth Champion told the jury on the first day of the trial one of Mr Tree’s friends yelled for the car to slow down. Ms Champion then told the jury Scott and another man later got out of the car and goaded those at Mr Tree’s address to fight back, before Scott got back in the car and rammed it into another car parked outside Mr Tree’s house.

The jury heard over the five-day trial Scott and four other males returned to the street on foot, with Mr Tree approaching them in a bid to calm them down.

The Scott and Tree families knew each other and the jury heard Mr Tree approached Scott and the other men by himself and was heard to say: “I don’t want to fight, I only want to talk to you.”  The jury heard Mr Tree was then hit and fell to the ground where he laid bleeding. During the trial Scott’s defence barrister, Russell Kelly, said there were “several issues” involved in the case, including what happened when Mr Tree approached the group of men. The jury was shown Scott's initial interview with police following his arrest in 2013 in which he indicated he “was acting in self-defence”. Scott will face a plea hearing in the County Court in Ballarat on Wednesday morning.