Judge Dennis Galiatsatos said it is “not a crime to give someone the finger” as he dismissed a criminal harassment charge brought against a man in Quebec following complaints from his neighbour.

The man’s neighbour had accused him of flipping the bird with both hands and making a death threat by drawing his finger across his throat.

However, the judge said the neighbour was the one who had been in the wrong, having first sworn at the man while wielding a power tool.

He also challenged the neighbour’s account of an alleged street party which led to the falling out, concluding that the neighbour’s parents had driven recklessly around the man’s young children.

“It is deplorable that the complainants have weaponised the criminal justice system in an attempt to exert revenge on an innocent man for some perceived slights that are, at best, trivial peeves,” the judge said.

He added: “In the specific circumstances of this case, the court is inclined to actually take the file and throw it out the window, which is the only way to adequately express my bewilderment with the fact that [the man] was subjected to an arrest and a fulsome criminal prosecution.”