A 12-person Yukon Supreme Court jury retired to the deliberation room this morning after hearing defence and prosecution submissions in the case against a local bouncer accused of assaulting a drunken patron on the street outside Coaster's Bar and Grill in October 2007.

On Tuesday afternoon, the jury heard the accused man's version of events when 23-year-old Clinton Derkson took the stand in his own defence.

The Tuesday night in question was a quiet one, Derkson told the court, and nothing out of the ordinary happened during his shift.

At the end of the night, however, he and his co-workers had a considerable amount of difficulty getting a pair of diamond drillers out of the bar.

Brent Lebrasse and Joshua August had been in the bar since Derkson started his shift at 8 p.m., he told the court. He didn't pay them too much mind until later in the night ,"when they started to get intoxicated and really loud," he said.

"They weren't causing problems," he said. "They were just getting louder."

By 2 a.m., however, the two men didn't want to leave.

Derkson told the court he watched as the men's waitress tried to take their beers away, telling them it was the end of the night, they'd had more than enough to drink and they had to go home.

As she walked away, Derkson said he heard the men calling her names.

"Were they nice names?" his lawyer asked.

"They weren't nice at all," Derkson replied.

So Derkson approached the two and repeated the request that they finish their drinks and go. Again, they refused. Next up was the bartender, who got the same response once again.

Finally all of the bar staff approached the two together.

"They said, 'This is our f---ing bar. We spend a lot of money here; we shouldn't have to leave."

Finally, about 30 minutes after first being asked to go, August and Lebrasse did leave, Derkson said.

A few minutes later, he went out for a cigarette with a couple of his co-workers. They weren't following the two men, he said; they were merely going out for a smoke.

But August and Lebrasse were still outside. They had wandered down the block, and when they saw the three Coaster's employees, they started staggering back.

Derkson said he didn't speak to the men, although the other smokers did.

A moment later, another man, the waitress's boyfriend, came out the doors of the neighbouring hotel. Lebrasse moved toward the boyfriend, Derkson recalled, then:

"They met each other halfway and they started throwing punches."

Standing in the witness box, Derkson went on to describe a motion he has "seen hundreds of times."

He said August clenched his fist and twisted his body back, as if to throw a punch at Derkson.

"It was a motion that he was going to attack me," Derkson said.

The bouncer said he acted "instinctively" and sent a single blow to August's head.

The whole thing, from the fight to the punch, took "an instant, not even a second," Derkson told the court.

The driller dropped, the other fight abruptly ended and the four friends went inside, leaving August and Lebrasse on the street.

August was later treated for a broken jaw and a fractured skull. Neither he nor Lebrasse remember anything after they left the bar that night, and both admit they were very drunk.

"Did you have any intention to harm Mr. August?" Derkson's lawyer asked his client.

"No," he replied.

"Did you have any desire to teach them a lesson?"

"Not at all."

"How do you feel about it today?"

"Extremely bad."

He did what he did, said Derkson, "because if you don't react, then you're gonna get hit."

When asked why he didn't simply go inside and lock the door when he saw the two men returning, he replied: "It's my responsibility to keep order outside the front door."

When court reconvened this morning, Justice J.E. Richard told the jury if they have a reasonable doubt about the Crown prosecutor's case against Derkson, they must find him not guilty.