WHAT TWISTED JUSTICE
Petting farm owner Olivia was attacked by a traveller on her own land – then arrested and charged by police. Now cleared, she angrily accuses the authorities of being scared of her tormentors
Widow olivia Boland’s 16-acre smallholding is a little slice of animal lovers’ heaven. Buttercups glow in the sundappled meadows and, apart from the squawking of peahens and the occasional hum from llamas, it is hard to imagine a more peaceful setting.
This mini animal kingdom, not far from the busy A14 in the Suffolk countryside, is home to 12 llamas, 11 alpacas, seven donkeys, four horses, two Shetland ponies, six pygmy goats, seven mini pigs, four emus, peacocks, chickens, geese and one swan.
Every summer, proud olivia opens the gates of Tostock Animal Park to the public where, for a small fee, families can pet ducklings and rabbits and enjoy free children’s donkey rides.
‘i love animals,’ says mother-of-three olivia, 63, who gently talks to them as if they were her own children. ‘You look into their eyes and there is an unspoken connection.’ if only the same were true of humans. when olivia bought this rural haven in 2016, she never dreamed it would become the backdrop to a two-year battle with residents on a neighbouring travellers’ site, which last year descended into an ugly brawl.
Nor that she would end up being charged by police with a public order offence after defending herself when fraught relations reached boiling point — resulting in a fracas which saw olivia dragged to the ground and, she claims, hit on the head with a pink sandal.
She thought that video evidence — partly captured on phone camera by olivia’s son Peter, 37, and showing her grappling with Emma Foster, 38, over a traveller’s horse which had strayed onto her land — would result in decisive police action following her desperate 999 call for help.
it certainly did. But not in the way she expected.
on viewing the footage, which shows Foster — face contorted with rage as she lunges towards 5ft tall olivia — officers reportedly accused the shocked farm owner of fighting back, when she should have ‘walked away’.
This, despite olivia having lodged more than 30 complaints with police over a two-year period against her neighbours, including allegations of trespass, criminal damage, racial abuse, fly- tipping, threats and harassment.
Earlier this month, both women ended up side by side in Norwich magistrates’ court charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause a person to believe that unlawful violence would be used against them. Both denied the charges.
Magistrates dismissed the case against olivia, but Emma Foster was convicted. She was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £ 100 compensation to Mrs Boland, a £20 victim surcharge and £200 prosecution costs.
Vindicated olivia is still smarting over the humiliating episode.
‘The video recording showed i didn’t do anything except calmly stand up for myself and refuse to be bullied,’ says the mother-of-three.
‘ They could hear me being attacked during my 999 call, with the travellers shouting in the background. i asked them, how can calling 999 be deemed as threatening or abusive behaviour?
‘i told the police, “i’m only 5ft tall. i’m not scared of them, so why are you scared?” i was the victim in this. i was attacked on my own land, but it felt as if i was the one being punished.’
Her son Peter, who also works on the farm, adds: ‘i was absolutely disgusted when my mum was charged. She is a diminutive, elderly lady. She is not a big, strong person and it was sickening seeing her being attacked.
‘it was a tremendous relief when the case was dismissed, but she should never have been charged in the first place. This has been hanging over us for eight months, which has been stressful and traumatic.’
on the day i visit, all is now thankfully calm at Tostock Animal Parks.
There is no sight of the travellers who olivia claims have made her life a misery with what she calls a campaign to force her out after she refused their request to buy some of her land and then denied them the access they’d previously enjoyed under the former owners.
Before olivia bought the land from a family who’d moved away from the area, it had been used for weekend car part sales, but otherwise the travellers kept their horses there.
A makeshift plank bridge crossed the wide, water-filled ditch which separates the travellers’ site from her land and provided them with access, until olivia removed it — triggering further bad feeling.
olivia feared the bridge was also being used by persons unknown — from outside the vicinity — to fly tip trade waste on their land causing a health hazard and rat infestations.
last week, no one at the Broadgrass Green permanent travellers’ site near Bury St Edmunds — where a handful of families live in brickbuilt bungalows — wanted to talk about the Bolands.
But olivia — a vivid character in bright red lipstick, floral trousers and gold top — has plenty to say about what she sees as the almost protected status of traveller communities, when conflict arises between them and other sections of society.
‘when we first met, the travellers were very nice to me until they couldn’t get what they wanted,’ she says. ‘But the only way to deal with bullies is to stand up to them. if only the police had been standing behind me.’
Born in Taiwan, olivia — who moved to Britain in 1979 with her late husband Tony Boland, a British civil engineer 29 years her senior — says she’s the kind of woman who sticks up for what she believes is right.
She says she expected more from Suffolk Police. indeed, she’s now launching a crowd-funding website to fund private prosecutions — for others as well as herself — for situations such as this.
As chairman of the Chinese Association in Suffolk, she describes herself as a champion of minority groups. in 2011, she even visited the dale Farm travellers’ site in Essex to write an article on their forced eviction for a racial equality campaign group, operation Black Vote, staying for several days.
‘when i went round to introduce myself to my new neighbours, they invited me in for a tea or coffee and a
chinwag,’ says Olivia, whose husband died from pancreatic cancer aged 69, leaving her a single mother to three children then aged nine, 16 and 17. ‘They were very welcoming and I always had a big wave and smile for them, when they drove past in their pony traps. I wasn’t expecting any trouble at all.’
Within a couple of months, however, the mood changed after — she claims — a man from the site expressed an interest in her land, allegedly telling her, “If you don’t sell me a piece of your land, I will just call in the caravans. You will never get rid of us, it will cost you a fortune to get rid of us.” ’
A different man, she claims, then told her: ‘I am asking you nicely to sell me some land. Everybody knows in England that you don’t cross Gypsies. We are Gypsies.’
After the Bolands hired a contractor to remove the plank bridge over the waterway, she would later complain to police that a woman traveller had threatened her son with the words: ‘ We have told other travellers to leave you alone, but now, everything is off.’
Olivia says: ‘Women were coming on to our land with four or five dogs and I kept asking, “Please, don’t come in, we have livestock now, pregnant animals” and they just kept ignoring me.
‘I tried to reason with them, in a pleasant way, but they’d say, “Trespass isn’t a criminal offence, there’s nothing you can do.”
‘Then they started saying things like, “You’re not supposed to be here. This is our land. Go back to where you came from.” Sometimes we’d be called “Chinese pigs” or other obscenities.
‘I’m old enough to brush it off. You just don’t engage or respond. I decided to treat them like silly children, but it was harder on my son Peter. He was really upset.’
For six months in 2016, Olivia says, everything quietened when a man — whom she believes was responsible for stirring up ill-feeling — moved off site with his wife. There was no trouble with the other families but on the return of the ‘main agitators’ the conflict again escalated.
‘Something was said about killing our animals and eating them,’ says Olivia. ‘That was the first time they really got to me because animals are innocent. I could not protect them. I felt emotionally distraught. I was so upset, I contacted the police.’ Olivia says she fired off emails to the local council and spoke to their travellers’ liaison officer for advice, hoping to find some resolution to their issues.
All the while, she insists, she remained polite and cheery towards the travellers, returning their dogs which strayed on to her land.
But hostility flared again last August when, Olivia claims, she was verbally abused by a woman from the site as she arranged flower pots by her gate. After Olivia made a 999 call to police, she claims she was attacked. As there were no independent witnesses or video evidence, Olivia agreed to Suffolk Police’s suggestion of community resolution — a process of restorative justice avoiding criminal proceedings for minor altercations between two parties. One month later trouble flared a second time when one of the travellers’ horses strayed onto Olivia’s land and became trapped on a fence. Olivia says: ‘My son Peter went to save the horse and I jumped into the car, drove to the site and said, “Somebody come, your horse is in trouble, please come.” I was trying to be a good neighbour. Even after all the trouble, I went to tell them their horse is in danger. ‘Emma Foster came out screaming, “It’s my horse!” She was with another woman and teenager and they were all shouting and swearing at Peter, who was only trying to help their horse, trying to control it and walk it to a gate so they could take it.’ FE Aring another situation, Peter decided to film events to provide police with video evidence if necessary, which seemed to inflame an already heated situation. On the video, he can be heard swearing at the travellers to get off his land. He claims he too was hit in the fracas. ‘Peter was getting angry and I said, “Stop it Peter, don’t engage.” It was all so unpredictable. I couldn’t manage the situation so I dialled 999 which is when I was attacked,’ says Olivia. ‘They tried to get my phone, they weren’t happy about me calling the police. ‘I defended myself because if I didn’t have my phone, how could we call for help? The next thing I noticed Emma Foster was bending down, because her shoe had come off. The next thing I know it’s connecting with the side of my face.’ Peter adds: ‘ When my mum ended up on the ground that was the last straw for me. ‘Up until that point I was focused on the safety of the animal, but when she cried out in pain I just wanted them off our land immediately.’ Following the 999 call two police officers arrived, joined by four more when travellers gathered at the Bolands’ gate. ‘One of the men told the police, “We’ve had nothing but trouble since that woman arrived.” I couldn’t believe they were trying to make out they were the victims,’ says Olivia. ‘ When I asked Emma Foster to please take her horse from Peter at the gate and go, I was tearing my hair out when she then said, “I don’t want the horse, you keep it.” ‘I said, “All this fighting and swearing and you don’t want the horse?” ’ This time Olivia rejected
community resolution. After statements were taken from both sides, and video examined, Olivia says she was stunned to be charged with the same offence as Emma Foster.
A Suffolk Police spokesman said: ‘All allegations of this nature reported to police are proportionately investigated and charging decisions are made based on the evidence gathered. Individuals are then put before the courts for due legal process to take place.’
He said police recorded two racially aggravated crimes in respect of allegations of verbal abuse against the Bolands, adding: ‘These offences were investigated by officers and the suspect was dealt with by way of a referral to a diversionary programme. This course of action was taken following agreement with all parties involved, including the victim.’
Today, Peter says: ‘ My mother is a very resilient person. If we just run away, let this chase us off our land, then this is going to happen to many other people.’
Olivia believes the ‘ main agitators’ have left the travellers’ site and moved on to new homes.
She is hoping for a new era of peace with those still living there.
‘I’m not selling,’ she says. ‘I feel we have a civic duty to stand our ground and stick up for what’s right.’