War of the roses
Retired GP who pruned next door’s flowers was told: Cut my plants again and you will die
A RETIRED GP who pruned a neighbour’s roses that were hanging over his fence received a note warning: ‘Cut my plants again and you will die.’ Dr Mathiaparanam Sreetharan, 73, who was born in Sri Lanka, faced racist slurs during a long-running dispute with his neighbours Rosa Rahman, 75, and her daughter Rebecca, 46.
Rebecca Rahman told him at one point: ‘People in this country have a garden. Where you come from is just mud huts and no garden.’
The mother and daughter claimed Dr Sreetharan poured weedkiller on parts of their back garden to kill plants close to a boundary fence.
Dr Sreetharan told a court yesterday that he feared for his life and was forced to drive to a police station for his own safety after the women allegedly armed themselves with bricks. During the course of the dispute, from June to August last year, he made six separate complaints to police, and the pair were charged with harassment, assault, and racially-aggravated comments and threatening behaviour.
Yesterday, he told Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court how the rows escalated, adding: ‘I was clearing plants that had come on to my side of the property.
‘The neighbours were there shouting at me – very abusive language.’
He described his shock at finding the ‘death note’ on his fence the next day, and recorded Rebecca Rahman making her ‘mud huts’ comment on his phone.
He claimed Spanish–born Rosa Rahman told him: ‘B*****d, coming here to bleed the country dry.’
Responding to the claims, Rosa Rahman told the court: ‘My life is the garden, I spent a lot of money on it and he started cutting everything he could reach.
‘It’s my life’s work and he’s ruined everything. He was ruining my gar- den and I told him he was a horrible man. I was very angry, I just looked at my plants and cried.’
Magistrates cleared the women of arming themselves with bricks outside their £750,000 property in Balham, south London, and Rosa Rahman was cleared of making a racially-aggravated comment.
The court also found her not guilty of harassment by using a hosepipe to drench the doctor and throwing dirty washing-up water over him. But she was convicted of assaulting Dr Sreetharan by pushing his shoulder in his front garden on July 5 last year, and calling him ‘a nasty little man’. Her daughter, a production manager and mother of one, admitted racially-aggravated threatening behaviour on June 30 and harassment between June 26 and August 23. But District Judge Barbara At court: Rosa and Rebecca Rahman. Inset, Dr Sreetharan Barnes criticised Dr Sreetharan, adding: ‘The complainant was not a credible or convincing witness, unclear, rambling and confused.
‘He was vague and at times obstructive and has exaggerated and embellished aspects of his evidence. I don’t find his account of being scared for his life or that these ladies came at him with bricks as plausible.’
Referring to Rosa Rahman, she added: ‘I did not find her compelling either, and she found difficulty admitting what she said – calling him a b*****d.’
Rosa Rahman was fined £75 with £150 costs and a £30 victim surcharge. Her daughter was put on probation for a year and must do 100 hours’ community service. She was fined £200, and must pay £85 costs and an £85 victim surcharge.
‘Coming here to bleed the country dry’