Woman would sound an alarm every time elderly neighbour watered her hanging baskets
A woman who made her neighbour’s life ‘hell’ every time she watered her plants has been hit with a restraining order.
Kim Porter-Wilson would take pictures of pensioner Ann Breen and sound an alarm whenever she tended to her hanging baskets in the garden.
The 46-year-old also made gestures to Ms Breen’s CCTV camera outside her bungalow during a nine-month campaign of harassment against her elderly neighbour.
She carried out her relentless tirade of intimidation because she was worried that the water would run towards her pathway, the court heard.
After constantly being photographed, Ms Breen, 71, became so apprehensive that she was forced to only water her plants at night.
Despite using the cover of darkness to try and keep her greenery alive, Porter-Wilson continued to snap photos of the OAP outside her property in the quiet suburb of Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk.
Norwich Magistrates’ Court heard how Porter-Wilson would also verbally abuse workmen and deliberately cause parking problems in a lay-by outside their homes.
Porter-Wilson was due to face a two-day trial accused of harassment but she instead accepted an 18-month non-conviction restraining order.
It specifically states that she must not film Ms Breen watering her plants and must not contact four of her neighbours, directly or indirectly.
Matt Jackson, mitigating, argued the order was proportionate and that ‘there have been no issues since my client was charged, and that is going back nearly 10 months’.
‘The defence case here was accepting much of the conduct,’ he said. ‘But saying that it amounted to irritation and annoyance and does not cross into the threshold of harassment.’
Mr Jackson also told the court Porter-Wilson suffered from a condition that meant her ‘social skills can sometimes not be as good as they could be’.
He said that her ‘reaction sometimes to what her neighbours have done was unpleasant’ and added: ‘As with all neighbour disputes there are always two sides to the story.’
Speaking after the hearing, Ms Breen said she moved to Breydon Way for a ‘quiet retirement’ with her husband Michael, 72, four years ago.
But instead of enjoying their later years in peace, Porter-Wilson has ‘made life hell’ and made their home ‘more like a prison’.
Ms Breen said: ‘We’re old age pensioners. We came here to have a quiet retirement. We haven’t got that yet.
“We have had over four years of it. We’ll be sat here doing nothing and she will just start banging and moving the cars in the driveway.
‘It’s just made our lives hell. We’re treading on eggshells all the time. She’s made us feel very uncomfortable in our own home.
‘There’s not been a quiet moment. It’s been more like a prison.’
Another neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, also spoke after the hearing and said Porter-Wilson ‘needs to be kicked off the street’ because she’s ‘just been horrible’ for four years.
They also said she moved the cars in the driveway several times a day and would bang a concrete slab on her bin.
The neighbour said: ‘We didn’t get what we wanted. She needs to be kicked off the street.
‘At the end of the day, the court wanted to give her a 12-month restraining order and I said absolutely not. Hopefully she can just leave us alone now.
‘For the past four years, we have had nothing but abuse. I’ve been afraid to even walk down the street.
‘She’s made me very upset and angry and I am not like this. She’s just been horrible. It’s been a nightmare.’
In other neighbour wars, a community kicked up a stink last month about a man’s garden loo giving off an ‘unbearable stench’.
A mum says she’s also facing a similarly smelly problem with raw sewage spilling out of her loo every time her neighbours flush their toilet.
In London, a doctor is facing a £200,000 court bill for trying to claim land from three of her neighbours’ gardens.
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