Pensioner used concealed hose pipe to f lood his neighbours
A PENSIONER flooded his neighbours’ house with a hidden hose – after an alleged jibe about his wife five years earlier.
Peter Wright, 73, left Hugh and Maureen McKeown with an £11,600 repair bill after targeting them for 18 months.
Wright also secretly fitted a door chime to randomly sound in an attempt to further annoy them at the property in Bishopbriggs, Dunbartonshire.
The pensioner was snared when the McKeowns, aged 53 and 50, hired a roofer to investigate the mystery leaks and he found the rigged-up garden hose.
First offender Wright pleaded guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to engaging in a course of conduct which caused fear and alarm to the couple.
He was spared jail and instead ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work and to pay the McKeowns £1,000 compensation.
Sheriff Patricia Pryce told him: ‘For 18 months you went out of your way to cause annoyance for your neighbours because of alleged remarks said about your wife.
‘It’s strange to see a man who was law-abiding all his life brought to the attention of the courts for behaving like that at your age.’
The crime lasted between September 2018 and February this year.
The court heard the McKeowns had a number of ‘incidents of flooding’ at their home.
Prosecutors stated there was ‘significant damage’ to their house.
The McKeowns’ roofer ripped back plasterboard in their en suite bathroom and found the hose coming from the next-door property.
Prosecutor Rachel Wallace added: ‘He observed a small device on the end of it, believed to be a door chime. It was believed to be a malicious act.’
Mr McKeown heard drilling from next door the following day.
He discovered the hole between the two properties was being boarded up.
Police were alerted and Wright insisted he had been repairing a leak in his roof. But the pensioner, now of Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, ended up being arrested.
Miss Wallace told the court: ‘He was asked why he did it and he said it was just annoyance.’
Hazel Kerr, defending, said Wright’s actions were a ‘response to a comment made five years ago’.
She added: ‘He knows this was disproportionate to the actions of his neighbours.
‘He can’t offer any justification for his actions. He is ashamed and feels stupid for acting in this way.’