A local news journalist has recalled a long-running series of verbal jousts with a local property mogul who has been slapped with an injunction after a series of spats with council staff.

Fergus Wilson has been told to leave Ashford Borough Council employees alone following a “decade of harassment” in a High Court case brought by the authority.

But KentOnline journalist Ed McConnell has revealed that he too has had a long series of run-ins with the multi-millionaire landlord.

In a piece on the website he recalled how Mr Wilson had urged him to “top himself,” challenged him to a fight, branded him a “left-wing failure” and on one occasion even told him to “curry his balls.”

Wrote Ed: “Fergus Wilson’s run ins with Ashford council staff recounted in court were appalling. The allegations were not at all pleasant and at first, fleetingly, I was shocked.

“It didn’t sound like the eccentric figure I’d battled with over the phone and via email, and occasionally the post, over the years. But the more I read the more I related.

“I’d always seen our relationship as so sour it was funny – a joke we were both in on. He’d call me all the names under the sun and I’d laugh, share with friends and sometimes fire off a sarcastic reply.

“In my head I’d turned him into a character, a sort of expletive-spouting Toad of Toad Hall. But, of course, that should never make it acceptable and I’m glad Ashford council had the wherewithal to act.

“As Fergus himself had hinted at in his 2017 missive ‘bone idle’, I hadn’t had the minerals.

“You really should top yourself!” he wrote. If you haven’t got the balls try a one way ticket to Dignitas!”

“In my defence it is little wonder I found some of the abuse funny. [One 2017 email] read: “You would not punch a man who wears glasses would you? Well no but I will make an exception in the case of Ed McConnell. He needs his balls curried and stuck up his Vinderloo!”

In the piece, Ed also revealed that Mr Wilson, a former boxer, repeatedly offered him £10,000 to get into a bare-knuckle bout with him, prompting the mock-up graphic pictured above.