It’s alleged Trevor Dempsey, 62, and Sandra Durdin, 58, became embroiled in a “messy” feud with Joanne Shreeves and flooded her alleyway by overwatering their plants. The pair are also accused of “putting up clowns and dolls on the fence” and standing at the bottom of the drive, calling Ms Shreeves “an ugly wh***”.
A court heard Dempsey and Durdin parked on the woman’s driveway in Chingford, east London, amid a “complex case” of alleged behaviour.
Dempsey and Durdin denied charges of harassment without violence at a hearing in December last year and their trial was due to open at Stratford Magistrates’ Court today.
Durdin faces a separate charge of criminal damage after she allegedly destroyed a £1,350 CCTV camera belonging to Ms Shreeves, My London reports.
All the offences happened between June 2020 and August 2021, the court was told.
The prosecution said the defendants had been neighbours with Ms Shreeves for 40 years and trouble only began in 2020, during the UK’s first national COVID-19 lockdown.
There is CCTV footage showing the defendants “spraying the house with water,” Lucy McGarr, prosecuting, said.
She called the case “complex” and “messy to say the least” in her opening statement.
Since the dispute, Dempsey and Durdin have relocated to Ramsgate, Kent, more than 100 miles away from their former home.
Dempsey, who sat in the dock for the short hearing, spoke to confirm his details and tell the court he has now separated from Durdin.
District Judge Jane McIvor asked the Crown Prosecution Service for an urgent review if the case remained in the public interest.
A further hearing has been set for May 3 at the same court.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1594413/Neighbours-row-parking-driveway-cars-Chingford-east-London
