Parking row that led to pensioner, 81, attacking her neighbour across the potted geraniums
A PENSIONER attacked her neighbour in a petty row over parking on a communal grass verge in their well-heeled culde-sac, a court heard.
eunice Day was caught on video storming across to neighbour Suzanne Webb’s house before reaching over her potted geranium to assault her.
A court heard Day, 81, had upset her neighbours soon after moving into her rented bungalow by leaving her Audi on a patch of grass next to it.
She kept it there for weeks, preventing a small group of communityminded homeowners from cutting the grass. When asked to move her car by Mrs Webb she said she could ‘park wherever i like’. Day was said to have escalated the feud by blocking a private footpath leading to the five detached homes with her wheelie bin.
it is also claimed she sat outside on her mobility scooter in an attempt to intimidate her neighbours. Matters came to a head after the five residents complained to her letting agent about her behaviour.
it led to Day ‘aggressively’ pounding on Mrs Webb’s front door to have it out with her.
The victim videoed the angry octogenarian through her open kitchen window. The footage shows Day reach over Mrs Webb’s window box and smack the phone out of her hand. Mrs Webb had her granddaughter, six, with her and was left frightened by the incident in Ferndown, Dorset, on June 20, 2022.
Police were called and Day was prosecuted for assaulting Mrs Webb, who is in her 60s.
The defendant argued that she thought her neighbour was holding a knife, not a phone. Mrs Webb, who has lived on the road for 25 years, told magistrates in Poole that problems arose soon after Day moved in on April 1, 2022.
She said: ‘She had parked her Audi on the private strip of land we share between our five houses. i asked her who it belonged to when i was out on a walk and she said something like, “i can park where i like”.’
Day said she thought she was entitled to use the piece of land and told Mrs Webb she would check with the Land Registry.
‘Then i had an email from them asking me to move my car so that they could mow their communal lawn,’ she said. ‘At that time it was so hot that the grass was barely there.’
Jason Spelman, prosecuting, said Mrs Webb’s footage showed the manner in which Day approached her house meant it was ‘never going to be a friendly visit’. he said: ‘The defendant has gone there in a temper. You cannot hear Mrs Webb say anything aggressively.’ he added that Day was furious she was being videoed and described the suggestion she was confronted with a knife as ridiculous.
Michael McGhie, defending, said his client – a ‘respectable woman who worked in business her whole life’ – had been acting in self-defence. She ‘made a preemptive strike’ because she had had eye surgery and thought the phone was a knife.
Day was found guilty of assault. Paul Kemp, presiding magistrate, said: ‘ The phone footage was quite clear.’
Day was given a conditional discharge and told to pay £646 costs. There was no evidence Mrs Webb was injured.
‘Never going to be a friendly visit’