The grandson of a Bradford woman who was stabbed to death has gone on trial accused of making up allegations against the man who was charged with her murder.

Howard Brown was arrested and charged over 62-year-old Monica Flaherty's death in August 2002.

But a jury heard yesterday that the case against him was later dropped.

Mrs Flaherty's 33-year-old grandson Leon yesterday went on trial after he allegedly made false complaints to the police about attacks on him by 37-year-old Mr Brown and his 67-year-old father Rupert Brown.

Flaherty, of Priestman Street, Mann-ingham, told officers that he was stabbed in the neck during an incident involving the Browns at the Queens pub in Lumb Lane, Bradford, in January. He also claimed that Howard Brown had attacked him again with a knife three months later.

But prosecutor Jayne Beckett told Bradford Crown Court that Flaherty's relationship with the Browns had soured after the death of his grandmother and it was the Crown's case that the cuts to his neck and body had been self-inflicted.

"The Crown say he has done this to himself and in some way this is him playing out a grudge he has against the Browns," she said.

Mrs Beckett told the jury that they would hear evidence from a forensic pathologist who had concluded that the injuries caused to Flaherty's chest, shoulder and back in the second alleged attack were self-inflicted and the neck wound from the first incident could also have been caused by himself.

Flaherty has pleaded not guilty to two charges of doing acts tending or intended to pervert the course of public justice.

Mrs Beckett described how Flaherty had gone into the Queens pub while Rupert Brown was sitting at the bar and his son was in another room playing cards.

She alleged that he pulled Mr Brown senior off his stool and kicked him as he was on the floor before other people intervened to pull him away.

"The defendant was pulled away and at that stage was made to leave the public house. No one saw that he was injured at all," said Mrs Beckett.

Soon after the police were contacted and when they visited Flaherty he told them that he had been stabbed by the Browns.

The father and son were later arrested.

Flaherty maintained that Rupert Brown had been "thrashing around with a blade" and his son had brandished a lock-knife and stabbed him in the neck.

In April Flaherty complained to police that he had been stabbed by Howard Brown as he walked along Skinner Lane.

Flaherty claimed that the incident had happened about a week earlier but he had not reported it straightaway because he was going on holiday.

Rupert Brown denied in court that he had ever carried a knife with him.

Although he conceded having convictions for drugs offences, he rejected her suggestions that in August 2002 he was Flaherty's drug dealer and that there had been a fight over a drug deal between the two men on the night that Monica Flaherty was fatally stabbed.

Howard Brown, who has previous convictions for assault, denied stabbing Flaherty in the pub or on the second occasion. The trial continues.