Nasty Neighbor Gets Anti-Social Order

Nasty Neighbor Gets Anti-Social Order

LONDON (AP) - A retired businesswoman accused of vandalizing her neighbors' property and blocking local roads with dead animals and dog feces was served with an order Thursday banning her from engaging in anti-social behavior.

Jeanne Wilding, 57, is accused of clashing with at least 15 individuals and organizations in the idyllic rural hamlet of Bottomley in northeast England.

Prosecutors said Wilding repeatedly and loudly played a choral work "about rape, pillage and the trashing of villages," caused extensive damage to neighbors' vehicles, beamed floodlights into a neighbor's home and tipped oil over his driveway at night.

She also deposited dead animals, rubbish, dog feces, glass and nails on the road, obstructing other homes and communal spaces, they said.

In all, there were more than 250 alleged incidents involving Wilding in less than 16 months.

At Halifax Magistrates' Court, Deputy District Judge Sandra Keen granted Calderdale Council's application to give Wilding an anti-social behavior order, or ASBO.

"It's clear she has little or no appreciation of the effect her behavior has on other people," the judge said.

"If her views are challenged, she responds in a wholly inappropriate manner. She takes a confrontational stance, causing others harassment or distress."

Under the ASBO, Wilding is banned from damaging property, from entering domestic properties without the owners' consent and from spreading trash anywhere outside her property.

She also is banned from playing loud music and from maintaining or installing lighting or closed-circuit TV equipment that covers anywhere outside the boundary of her property.

Wilding also was ordered to pay 75,000 pounds ($135,000) toward the council's costs.

Introduced in 1999 to counter "loutish and unruly conduct," anti-social behavior orders have been used to ban thousands of people, some as young as 10, from associating with certain people or engaging in activities as varied as shouting, swearing, spray painting, playing loud music and walking down certain streets.

Breaching an order is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison.