Gran ‘faces arrest’ for not returning garden footballs
A GRANDMOTHER says police have warned her that she faces arrest if she refuses to return footballs kicked into her garden by the children next door.
Penny Freeman, 73, has spent £3,000 creating a manicured lawn with colourful flower beds in the walled garden of her Victorian home.
Her neighbour’s two young children have a goal at the end of their garden.
But the grandmother-of-four says the footballs end up on her side, smashing pots and breaking plants.
Ms Freeman was so incensed that no-one had knocked on her door to ask for the balls back or apologised that she stashed them in her shed.
She said: “I’m very angry. The children don’t say, ‘please can I have my ball back, I am sorry’. It is beyond the pale. I wanted the children to learn the consequences.”
But she was stunned when her neighbour complained to police and two officers turned up at her home in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, to warn her she could be charged with theft if she didn’t hand them back.
Ms Freeman added: “It seems you don’t need to ask for your balls back, you just call the police.
“They came round and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is not happening’. They told me I was not allowed to keep the balls and I had to return them. I had no intention of keeping them.” Ms Freeman says following the approach by Humberside Police, she is now considering ringing 999 every time a ball sails into her garden – citing criminal damage.
Ms Freeman has lived in the semidetached home with her brother James Fudge, 71, for five years. She added: “We thought we’d keep the balls for a week and see if they’d come and ask for them back. They never did. We had 10 balls in our shed. We only kept them a week.”
The mother of the boys, aged 11 and six, insists that she has offered to pay for any damage caused. But she said she was too scared of her “battleaxe” neighbour to ask for the balls back. The mother, who asked not to be named, said: “We just want them to chuck the balls back over the wall. I know it can be a bit of a nuisance... it’s just one of those things.”
Humberside Police confirmed both parties had been spoken too, adding: “Words of advice have been offered to take steps to resolve the matter.”