Petting farm owner attacked by travellers next door... and police charge HER over brawl
A PETTING farm owner who was attacked by a traveller on her own land after two years of intimidation ended up being charged over the brawl.
Olivia Boland, 63, claims she was harassed for two years by travellers next door who wanted to buy her land.
And when one of their horses strayed onto her property she was beaten and dragged to the ground as she tried to return it.
‘These travellers have made my life hell and the police have done nothing,’ she said. ‘I’ve reported over 30 crimes to the police and instead I was charged when I was attacked on my own land.
‘Travellers can get away with anything. The police have allowed law and order to break down.’
She and her son were walking the horse toward a gate to return it when Emma Foster, who is 25 years her junior, arrived and started yelling abuse. Within moments the women were grappling.
Despite giving mobile phone footage of the fracas to police, Mrs Boland was charged alongside her attacker. Officers accused the shocked farm owner of fighting back when she should have ‘walked away’.
She had to wait eight months before the charge was dismissed by magistrates. Foster, however, was convicted and ordered to pay compensation and costs.
Mrs Boland’s son Peter, 37, said last night his mother ‘didnt do anything wrong’.
‘It was ludicrous that she was charged and I am glad that the court threw out the case against her,’ he said.
‘Nothing was done when we made earlier complaints about criminal damage and racist abuse. It is as if they wanted to protect the travellers.’
Mrs Boland, a widow, set up Tostock Animal Parks, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, after buying the 16-acre smallholding in 2016. Animals there include llamas, alpacas, peacocks and horses. But the idyllic lifestyle she hoped for was ruined by repeated incidents of fly-tipping, trespassing and petty thefts. Dirty nappies were thrown over her gate, the windows smashed on her horsebox and threats made to ‘kill and eat’ her animals.
The Taiwanese-born mother of three, who came to the UK in 1979, said she had also been subjected to racist abuse, including ‘slant-eyed gestures’.
She was also pressured to sell land to the permanent traveller site next door. She said one man warned her: ‘If you don’t sell me a piece of your land I will just call in the caravans.’Another allegedly told her: ‘Everyone in England knows you don’t cross gipsies’.
Mrs Boland agreed to a police suggestion
‘You can hear me screaming’
to opt for a community resolution – which involves compensation or issuing an apology – to deal with the situation. But the problems continued. On September 21 last year, she and her son went to return a horse that had wandered onto their land, but a woman from the travelling community arrived on their property to demand they let it go. She was joined by Foster, who started swearing and lunged at her.
‘She picked up her sandal and began to attack me,’ Mrs Boland said. ‘She was hitting me and my vision was blurred. She landed a few blows and started dragging me to the ground. You can hear me screaming.’
As her son told the group to get off their land, a traveller is heard shouting, ‘Chinese pigs’ and ‘Get the f*** out of my country.’
Mrs Boland admits pushing Foster away but said she was acting in self-defence.
She contacted police, who suggested another community resolution, but she refused. The shocked farm owner was then told she would face being charged as she had ‘fought back too hard’.
Her ordeal finally ended on May 10 when Ipswich magistrates dismissed the case against her due to a lack of evidence. She had denied using threatening or abusive words of behaviour with intent to cause a person to believe violence would be used against them.
Foster denied the same charge but was convicted. Travellers at the site refused to comment.
Suffolk police said: ‘All allegations of this nature reported to police are proportionately investigated and charging decisions are made based on the evidence gathered.’