A panel of B.C. Court of Appeal judges sent two Watson Lake men packing back to prison this week, saying their evidence still doesn't hold up in court.

Roger Brace and Tyler Stewart were convicted of breaking and entering, assault and uttering threats last February.

Judge John Faulkner of the Yukon territorial court sentenced them to three years each, and added 30 days to Stewart's time for a minor theft.

The men were accused of kicking down the door of a Watson Lake home, beating up the three men inside, threatening to return, then taking off with a case of beer.

One of the victims received a serious cut to his face which required stitches.

During the assault, another man managed to escape and ran to the nearby hospital, where he called the RCMP.

But Stewart and Brace told an entirely different story.

When they appeared in court last year, the two said they had in fact been accosted in the street by the residents of the house, one of whom was wielding a baseball bat.

A fight ensued, and Brace said he was hit in the head with the bat several times before he managed to wrestle it from his attacker's hands and deliver some retaliatory blows.

The accused men brought forward two witnesses to support their version of events.

One was a friend who lived down the street and had been hanging out with the two earlier in the day. He said he saw "some sort of altercation" in front of the house in question, but didn't see anyone being hit.

The second witness was Brace's common-law wife, who said she felt bumps on her partner's head, likely left by the baseball bat.

Both Brace's and Stewart's testimonies were "articulate and confident," Faulkner said in his reasons for judgment, whereas the testimonies of the three men who said they were attacked suffered from a "degree of unsophistication."

However, he said, "I prefer to look at what the witness has said, not the manner and demeanour of its telling."

The evidence gathered in the RCMP investigation into the affair all supported the victims' evidence: a broken lock and hasp hanging from the front door, a bloodstain on the kitchen floor and the complete absence of a baseball bat from anywhere inside or outside the house.

Furthermore, Brace, although he went to the hospital to have his head looked at after his arrest, never produced any medical records to support his claim about being hit in the head. The photos police took of his face and head showed no signs of a beating.

In the end, the judge found, the testimonies given by the two accused were a bit too polished, while the evidence given by the complainants was realistically scattered and incomplete.

One man saw Stewart take the beer; another heard the two threaten to return.

The one who ran for help, the judge said, would hardly have had time to construct his story and convince his friends to go along with it in the time between calling for help and the officer's arrival.

Brace and Stewart appealed Faulkner's decision, saying the judge failed to properly consider the evidence and that he wrongly dismissed the testimonies given by their friend and Brace's common-law wife.

The three Court of Appeal judges went back over the case, listened while the men's lawyer "reviewed the evidence at some length," and then summarily dismissed them, sending the two back to prison.

The two will likely be eligible for parole next November.