Asbo OAP 'will appeal home ban'

Dorothy Evans has lived in in Park Crescent for 41 years

An 82-year-old pensioner banned from her home after being handed a second antisocial behaviour order is set to appeal, her daughter has insisted.

Dorothy Evans was found guilty on two counts of breaching an Asbo imposed on her to prevent her from harassing neighbours in Abergavenny, south Wales.

The order, issued on Friday, means she is banned from her home of 41 years for the next five years.

She was also given a nine month jail sentence, suspended for two years.

At the end of a two-week trial, a jury at Cardiff Crown Court found Evans not guilty of eight other counts of breaching her first Asbo.

Judge Nicholas Cooke QC said he ordered the ban "with regret".

Evans had denied 10 breaches of her Asbo which was served in 2005 and which banned her from causing harassment, alarm or distress to her neighbours.

I think it is very harsh to put an 82-year-old out of her home Barbara Thomas

The new order bans her from coming within one square mile of the house she shared with daughter Barbara Thomas, to the north of Abergavenny town centre, with immediate effect.

The judge said the only alternative to the order would be a lengthy prison sentence.

Appeal

Speaking after the case, Mrs Thomas said an appeal against the order "would be launched immediately".

"I am very pleased she has been found not guilty on eight charges," she said.

"I think it is very harsh to put an 82-year-old out of her home."

When asked if her mother had a bed for the night, Mrs Thomas said: "We haven't even thought about it. I don't know.

"She is very upset and she is far from well and she has not been for a long time."

The court was told Evans has convictions dating back to 1999 for harassment and breaching a restraining order.

Last year, she was jailed for six months, later reduced to four months, for breaches of the Asbo.

The pensioner has been in a long-running feud with neighbours triggered by a boundary dispute with Gemma and Leon Stafford on one side and a parking row with Angela and Roberto Casa on the other side.

The jury found Evans guilty of breaching her Asbo by harassing the Casa family in September 2007 and by harassing the Stafford family on 5 June this year.

She has not learned, and she has had too many chances, and there is to be no repetition Judge Nicholas Cooke QC

In sentencing Evans, Judge Cooke said he thought nothing else would bring her offending to an end.

"She has been given a prison sentence in the past, and it did not deflect her from this kind of behaviour" he said.

"She has not learned, and she has had too many chances, and there is to be no repetition. This is the end."

Judge Cooke said if Evans breached the order, she could be jailed for up to five years.

The judge also restrained Evans from behaving in a threatening, abusive or insulting way to either the Casas or the Staffords.

Her daughter Mrs Thomas will face a court hearing later this year at which Judge Cooke will decide whether or not to bind her over to keep the peace for her own behaviour towards her neighbours.

The judge also called a meeting between the Crown Prosecution Service, Wales' Commissioner for Older People and the social services department in Monmouthshire to discuss the case.

He is keen to see "how better it might have been dealt with", he added.