Don’t sing for me, naked pensioner!

Jailed, OAP who wouldn’t stop warbling Evita tune in garden

For years, the elderly residents of Conisburgh Court didn’t need alarm clocks.

Every day at 5am their neighbour Peter robinson-Graham gave an ear-splitting rendition of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. In the garden. Half-naked.

His tuneless warbling – along with some other rather unsavoury habits – drove tenants in the over-55s apartments to distraction.

The 78-year-old would often be outside in just a dressing gown which would flap open, leaving little to the imagination much to his neighbours’ horror.

Another favourite in robinson-Graham’s repertoire was the repetitive Ten Green Bottles, a court heard.

District Judge Christopher Dodd ruled his antics put him in breach of a previous injunction designed to protect his neighbours and robinson-Graham was jailed for 18 weeks.

The case was brought by the Castles & Coasts Housing Association, which runs the Conisburgh Court over-55s complex in Carlisle. The Association’s barrister Sarah Jameson told Carlisle County Court the defendant made loud noises between 4am and 5am on a daily basis and targeted residents with rude gestures and comments.

Three sets of neighbours made statements telling of their torment. Inspiration? Madonna in Evita, and left, Peter Robinson-Graham in action One resident said: ‘ He would sing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina – again and again and again, it was just terrible.’

The ballad, a No 1 hit in 1977, is from the musical Evita, written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim rice. An elderly woman in the flat directly above robinson-Graham said: ‘Me and my husband are woken almost every morning by the defendant shouting, banging and singing.

‘He often bangs what sounds like his walking stick against the walls or radiators, which makes a huge clanging noise. We moved to Conisburgh Court in our retirement to have a peaceful life and to enjoy living in our flat.

‘We did not expect since 2011 we would have to endure daily torment, abuse, and noise nuisance.’

Another Conisburgh Court tenant, a man in his sixties, told how robinson-Graham liked to stand in the complex’s communal garden, shouting loudly and singing every morning.

‘He is always wearing a bath robe, which is always partly or fully open, exposing himself, which is unacceptable,’ he said. robinson-Graham, he added, was always at his kitchen window ‘in a state of undress and making rude hand gestures’.

There was no mention in court of robinson-Graham suffering mental health problems. He refused to attend the hearing and was condemned to prison in his absence.