Jean Smith outside Basingstoke Magistrates Court, Hants. (Image: Solent News Agency)
‘Nuisance neighbour’ Jean Smith spent 18 months damaging Darren Collins’ wooden box by spraying it with luminous green spray paint, magistrates were told.
The 74 year old was even accused of ‘deliberately demolishing’ one of the plantersby driving over it with her car – although she claimed that was accidental as it was ‘difficult to see’.
Now she has been found guilty of multiple counts of criminal damage. Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court, Hants, heard Mrs Smith has lived in her £580,000 detached house in Farnborough, Hants, for 30 years, while Mr Collins moved in to the next door house six years ago.
Mrs Smith has to drive through Mr Collins’ land to get to her own driveway, magistrates were told.
Mr Collins told the court he had ‘no choice’ but to put the two planters, filled with earth, on the edge of his front lawn as her dog grooming customers kept ‘driving onto’ his grass.
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One was damaged by Mrs Smith in August 2022, a few months after they were installed.
In video shown to the court, the retired A&E worker can be seen nudging the box as she does a three-point turn to leave her own driveway.
The court heard that in January 2024 she began vandalising the other planter, first with reflective red tape and then with various colours of luminous spray paint.
Mrs Smith, who has lived in the house for 30 years, sprayed the wooden box at least three times, often moving her car to block the CCTV camera whilst she did so.
It got to the point where Mr Collins, who moved in next door in 2019, covered the planter in grey anti-vandal paint to cover the spray which had embedded itself in the wood and could not be cleaned off.
Their ‘difficult’ relationship came to a head in February 2024 when Mr Collins confronted Mrs Smith about her painting the planter and she began yelling at him that he was a ‘thieving prick’.
She was angry over a previous incident where he had not immediately returned a parcel wrongly delivered to his house.
Opening the case, prosecutor Ryan Seneviratne described Mrs Smith as a ‘nuisance neighbour’ who had deliberately demolished one of Mr Collins’ planters before repeatedly targeting the other with luminous spray paint.
‘Nuisance neighbour’ Jean Smith spent 18 months damaging Darren Collins’ wooden box by spraying (Image: Solent News Agency)
He said: “Three words come to mind ‘wooden garden planter’, [Mr Collins] has built wooden boxes which he has put on his grass, he is entitled to put them on his land… [Mrs Smith] is not to touch or deface it.
“You will hear that on the 25 August, 2022 she drives deliberately into the side of the planter demolishing it, causing it to break.
“[Mrs Collins] drives forward, you will see broken pieces of the wooden box, it is completely destroyed, she picks up the bits and throws them into his garden.”
Mr Seneviratne then listed each of the 10 occasions between January 2023 and January 2024 where the prosecution alleged Mrs Smith had defaced the garden decoration with reflective tape and luminous spray paint.
He continued: “She does not like him for some reason, this is very straightforward, this is not something Mr Collins is expected to put up with.
“She does not have permission to do that, she says some of it is accidental and some of it is necessary because they are encroaching on her property, they are not.
“She says no damage was caused, it is damaged if you alter it or change it.
“What she is choosing to do is be that nuisance neighbour, she is choosing to destroy his property on his land, she is doing it because she has got some kind of grievance against him.”
Mr Collins told the court he had made the planters from old doors and he had ‘no choice’ to install them after Mrs Smith’s customers kept ‘driving onto’ his grass.
He said: “It makes me feel very anxious about where I live and the way my neighbour acts towards me.
“It makes me worry every time I go to work, will something get sprayed or broken…
“I put those two planters in place because my neighbour’s customers were driving onto my grass.
“I did say if they kept putting them there I would have no choice but to put something there.”
Mrs Smith told the court the planter was ‘difficult to see’ and she didn’t realise she had clipped it when leaving her drive. She said: “He had put it rather close to the shared turning point, the planter was quite small so it was difficult to see. I didn’t realise I had clipped it with my wheel.
“I asked him on numerous occasions to make the planter visible, Mr Collins just refused to make the planter visible to us.
“It’s only a problem in the dark.”
District Judge Stephen Apted found Mrs Smith guilty of eight counts of criminal damage but cleared her of three counts of it including the incident with the car as he could not be certain it was intentional.
Mrs Smith was handed a £400 fine, £50 for each offence, and ordered to pay a £160 victim surcharge, £620 of the prosecution’s costs and £150 to Mr Collins in compensation.