Sonic warfare!
Ex-JP uses high-pitch alarm to scare off her neighbour’s children
‘My daughter screamed in pain’
WHEN former magistrate Lesley Cooper decided local children were a nuisance, she embarked on drastic action.
The retired teacher installed an alarm that emits a high-frequency screech only young people can hear. The £600 device is designed to combat anti-social behaviour in towns by deterring gangs of youths from loitering.
But Mrs Cooper, 74, has been accused by a neighbour of breaching his children’s human rights. Thomas Weldon says the Mosquito MK4 alarm causes them to scream in pain whenever they step outside while it is on.
Mr Weldon, 52, claims his seven-year-old daughter needed hospital treatment as a result of the high-frequency screech.
Mrs Cooper installed the alarm, which has a motion sensor, three years ago at her home in Babbacombe, Torquay. It emits blasts up to four times a second that are audible to those aged around 25 and under, who have sharper hearing.
She says she has turned it on only four times, for a maximum of five minutes, when the children were kicking footballs against the garage door of her £400,000 terraced home. ‘The alarm has been passed by Torbay Council and the police,’ Mrs Cooper said yesterday, adding that such devices had also been permitted by the European Court of Justice and by Parliament.
‘ It has been authorised because of the persistent nuisance which disturbs my residence by the family at the rear of my property. They have continually vandalised, harassed and made a complete nuisance of themselves.
‘I think I am a very good resident. I am an honest-living, concerned neighbour at all times and I wish others to behave likewise.’
Mr Weldon, a removal business owner, is a single father to ten children, six of whom – aged five, seven, nine, 11, 13 and 15 – live in his rented four-bedroom home, which backs on to Mrs Cooper’s garage. ‘They like to play outside,’ he said.
He claimed: ‘On one occasion she even called the police when one of their balls banged against her garage twice.
‘I have reported it to the council and I have been told the alarm is illegal and against children’s human rights. When the sun is shining she puts it on regularly. I’ve asked her to take it down but she won’t talk to me.
‘I had to take my seven-yearold daughter to hospital because she was screaming in pain because the alarm makes such a high-pitched noise.
‘We’re not allowed to step outside our front door because as soon as we do she puts it on.
‘It’s an absolute nightmare. It’s driving us absolutely mad. My children can’t come out of the house and play – it’s like living in a prison.’
Marion Ricketts, landlady of the nearby Buccaneer pub, said she and other neighbours supported Mr Weldon in his fight to have the alarm removed.
‘We have had problems with her banging on our doors for seven years every time a delivery lorry stops in the lane,’ Mrs Ricketts said. ‘I can stand up for myself. But it’s not right to have that alarm hurting kids. They are doing what kids should do – going outdoors, not sitting inside playing on an Xbox.’
Campaigners believe the alarms infringe human rights under noise-nuisance laws, creating no-go areas for children and adults. They have been described as ‘sonic weapons’ because they are so intensely irritating to children, causing them to suffer headaches, sickness and hearing problems.
In 2008, a Children’s Commissioner campaign called for the devices to be banned. In 2010, the Council of Europe found they were ‘degrading and discriminatory’ to youngsters and should be outlawed. However, thousands are still being sold in the UK, mainly to shop owners to deter anti-social youths.
Torbay Council said it had received no current complaint about Mrs Cooper’s alarm.