Hedge wars neighbour walks free
Pair were feuding for years
A pensioner avoided a rap yesterday after being accused of hacking down his neighbour’s prized trees during a bitter feud.
Keith McHale, 67, was charged with sneaking behind the garden next door and removing fence struts to get at the leylandii evergreens, causing £3,000 in damage.
Alan Seaborne and wife Elizabeth, both 64, have been at war with him for more than 25 years and claimed he was behind the sabotage.
But the retired dad walked free from Paisley Sheriff Court after the case of vandalism against him was found not proven.
Mr Seaborne, a former NHS manager, claims the conifers
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● Find out more and see some lovely photos in tomorrow’s Express. had been cut back like “a hot knife through butter”.
He said: “There were three trees that turned brown.
“I went around into the garden and discovered it was about 10 trees that had been sliced right through.
“The cut was straight through each tree – very neat.
“Somebody had taken the slats off the fence and cut through the trees and put them back meticulously.
“The reason I believe somebody had taken the slats off was because there were brand new nails in place of rusty and broken ones.”
The pair have not spoken for more than a decade after they fell out during a row over maintenance fees for common ground behind their homes.
Mr Seaborne claims McHale confessed to hacking back the shrubs after confronting him, before being told: “You’re not laughing now.”
But McHale insists he is being singled out by his neighbour and it is his trees that are being targeted.
He ma i ntained an argument broke out over their dividing fence after Mr Seaborne cut back his bushes and flicked branches onto his driveway.
McHale said: “I suspected there was going to be some sort of argy-bargy
“I called him a stupid little man – because I think he is a stupid little man.
“Trees of mine have been getting abused for a great many years. “I trim trees, he trims trees. “It’s a piece of rubbish.” Mr Seaborne told how a tradesman quoted him almost £ 3,000 to have the dead plants removed and a new hedge put in.
He says the damage was done between last winter and spring at the rear of his home in Parkinch, Erskine.
The witness claimed his neighbour admitted cutting the shrubs during a confrontation on April 2.
Elizabeth Seaborne conceded her family had been locked in a feud with her neighbours “from day one”.
She said: “I was pretty shocked somebody would have gone to the extremes of doing that.
“The fence at the rear had been tampered with.
“Somebody had taken the slats off to cut the bases of the trees.
“The old nails were rusted and the new ones weren’t.”
Travel agent Sheila McHale, 66, lives next to the couple, with her husband Keith, and admits police have been called due to rows between the families before.
Sheriff John Hamilton ruled the allegations dating between January and April had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
He said: “I find the case against Mr McHale not proven and he will be acquitted and discharged.” (Adjacent to Kwik Save car park, Paisley Road West)