You don't go over to someone else's house in a situation like that not looking for trouble do you?

Well, it certainly works against using a defence of self-defence, but it doesn't completely exclude it. Her argument was that she went over to remonstrate, not to assault and, had the jury believed her that would have been fine. I mean, if someone was waving a knife over the dividing fence at me, I think I would have stayed home...and going over mob-handed probably didn't help her case either, but there's clearly history between these neighbours and neither sounds entirely blameless if it's all true. But yeah, the recording is fairly damning, albeit even people defending themselves might get "into" a fight once started, or say some aggressive stuff when they "win".

Basically, I'm wiling to trust the jury got it right, since they heard a lot more than we did and got to see and hear the defendants make their case. And I think - on the face of it - proving intent to kill or cause serious injury would have been hard.