Neighbour’s cruel vendetta against ‘shrine’ widow
A NEIGHBOUR smashed up a shrine a grieving widow created in memory of her late husband in a harassment campaign that left her suicidal, a court heard.
Anthony Kenyon went ‘berserk’ after the woman placed shrubs, ornaments and a memory box under a pussy willow tree in their shared garden to remind her of the man she lost to cancer, Manchester magistrates court was told.
Kenyon, 48, claimed the tribute at Regina Court in Salford was a health and safety hazard. A court heard he uprooted the three-foot high tree, killed off the grass and plants with weedkiller and damaged ornaments including commemorative dolls.
The victim reported that Kenyon wrote notes claiming she had a ‘bogus husband,’ that she had only married him for his money and suggested she was involved in shoplifting.
Kenyon would ‘rant and rave’ at her from behind a window at his flat and call ambulances to her home, falsely claiming she had a severe mental illness and needed ‘taking away,’ the court heard.
It was said Kenyon’s neighbour had married her husband in June 2018 as he lay terminally ill in hospital. He died the following month.
The dispute started when she set up a shrine in her husband’s memory outside their respective homes in the apartment complex which houses the elderly or those with disabilities.
The neighbour told the court: “When Mr Kenyon originally moved into his flat I had personally asked him does he mind if I worked on the garden and put things in it and his answer was: ‘you can do anything you want with it – I’m not into gardening.’
“I like a nice garden it is therapeutic for me. But the first thing was, I received a note in the box I had made which was saying I only married my husband for his money and that he was a ‘bogus’ husband.
“My sister had invited me over to Portugal for a week but when I got back, a neighbour was at the door waiting for me. She said ‘they are on the bin,’ and I saw a note about the ornaments.
“I felt very upset as it was about my husband and my husband was my life. What Mr Kenyon was saying about the ornaments was horrible.
“How can an ornament cause a fire hazard? I reported it to the housing association but I received three more notes saying hateful and nasty things about me having second and third hand stuff in the garden – that I was this, that and the other.”
She told the court she suffers with depression and anxiety and at one stage wanted to kill herself, saying that she ‘couldn’t live with the pain’ of what Kenyon was doing.
Kenyon admitted posting notes but denied uprooting the tree and plants. Kenyon denied any wrongdoing but was convicted of harassment between September 2018 and February 2019. He was cleared of assaulting the complainant by throwing a dog toy at her.
Kenyon was bailed and is due to be sentenced in October.