Friday, February 23, 2007

Sweet old granny NOT !

An 81-year-old woman has been warned she faces jail after being found guilty of harassment and breaching her Asbo. (Anti-Social Behaviour Order)

Dorothy Evans, from Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, was accused of making her neighbours' lives "absolute hell" in the trial at Cardiff Crown Court. Evans was convicted of one charge of harassment and six charges of breaching her Asbo.

Judge Roderick Denyer QC said: "Despite her age I'm seriously contemplating a prison sentence." The judge said it was the only way of bringing home to her that she could not go on "behaving like this".

Evans, who was not in court on Friday because of a hospital appointment, will be sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on 23 March.

The jury took just over half an hour to unanimously convict her of the offences against her next-door neighbours in Park Crescent, Angela and Roberto Casa, between January and June 2006.

The judge had directed them to find Evans not guilty of a further charge of harassment against Mr Casa. On Wednesday, the jury heard how Evans had told the Casas' 13-year-old daughter she was a witch and would cast a spell on her family and kill her pet dog.

Angela Casa described several neighbourly disputes, including over parking and flooding problems. She claimed the pensioner called her a prostitute and also that she tried to run her off the road on several occasions and had hit her with a walking stick.

Speaking after the verdict, Mrs Casa said she felt relieved and was "shaking like a leaf" at the news.

She said: "I don't really care what the sentence is, I just hope she never speaks to me again. I just want to be able to get up in the morning and go out into my garden without having to worry about abuse. Only recently she dropped her trousers in front of my mother and mooned her."

Sentencing was adjourned for four weeks for the preparation of a medical report on Evans' current physical condition. The judge said that if she did not attend that hearing without a very good reason, he would issue a warrant for her arrest.

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