Beat that ! Neighbour

A Japanese woman was sentenced to one year in prison for bombarding her neighbours with loud music day and night for two and a half years.

Miyoko Kawahara, 59, blasted up-beat tunes on her radio-cassette player, causing her neighbours to feel dizzy, lose sleep and sending one woman to hospital for a month of treatment, the ruling said.

"After the defendant stopped playing music the neighbours' health recovered," Judge Tetsuya Okuda of Nara District Court in western Japan said.

"The defendant's act was a persistent and malicious crime aimed at troubling her neighbours."

Defence lawyers had argued that playing music could never be a crime.

The 65-year-old woman who was hospitalised also filed a civil lawsuit against Kawahara and won over $23,000 in damages, a decision that the defendant has appealed, Jiji Press said.