I’m on the run (in a wheelchair) says court-dodging OAP
AN ACADEMIC facing jail over a neighbour row involving a Frank Sinatra song has gone on the run.
Elizabeth Hall, 76, failed to turn up at court yesterday and a warrant has been issued for her arrest.
She has been in the dock many times as a result of a 25-year dispute with her long- suffering neighbour Christine Penny, 74.
It started when she accused Mrs Penny of playing the 1968 Sinatra hit My Way too loudly at their apartment block in Edgbaston, Birmingham, in 1996.
The bad blood has included accusations that dog food was flung through letter boxes and pasta was strewn on a balcony.
Hall was due for sentencing yesterday after admitting two breaches of restraining orders.
She already had two suspended prison sentences hanging over her head and had been warned she faced prison. But on the eve of the hearing at Birmingham Crown Court she sent the officer in the case a letter telling him she would not be attending.
‘I am aware I am due in court on November 11 for sentencing and committal,’ wrote the pensioner, who relies on a wheelchair. I have taken the decision not to attend as a mode of identifying and highlighting the multiple anomalies in the management of my case and the investment of yourself and others in generating and maintaining a false narrative with its implications for the delivery of “justice”. This is unnegotiable and I am adamant I shall appear when this suits me.’
Cigar- smoking Hall, who shares her home with a friend, added: ‘We shall leave Birmingham for the weekend, not Oxford, but probably a remote area of Derbyshire where a friend has offered us access to a ground floor cottage for the weekend. We may stay all week.’
Police became involved in the row six years ago when Mrs Penny – a former hotelier and actress in the soap Crossroads – discovered that potted plants on her landing had been cut down. As a result, Hall has spent nights in prison cells and had her computer seized.
In April she was found guilty by magistrates of harassing three people. She was sentenced at crown court a month later and received a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.
In July, she was again up before a judge for harassing Mrs Penny and breaching a restraining order.
On that occasion, she received a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for 21 months.
The court heard that Mrs Penny had received 53 emails from Hall despite a court order prohibiting contact. Judge Roderick Henderson told Hall she was ‘ in complete denial’ over her behaviour. Last night Mrs Penny said: ‘I can’t believe this, when will it finish? She’s still ruling the roost – or so she thinks.
‘It has been a living nightmare and I don’t even know what started it. The first incident was when Tony Blair was prime minister and Princess Diana was still alive.
‘I’m on anti-depressants and my childhood stutter is back. I couldn’t sell my property if I wanted to because you have to declare if you have problems with neighbours.
‘I don’t hate her, it’s almost fear. I’ve lived a nightmare for 25 years and the last six years have been horrendous.
‘It wouldn’t wish this on anyone who didn’t have strength because it would kill them. She told everyone I stole the caretaker’s drill. The stories get bigger and bigger.
‘She thinks I flooded her out in 1997 and I never did. The only light at the end of the tunnel is knowing she’ll get her just deserts.
‘She has to realise what she’s done to me – and if she has to realise that in a prison cell, so be it.’
‘Dog food through letter boxes’