A PENSIONER could face jail after she turned her lawn mower on to ruin her neighbours’ dinner party amid a 15-year vendetta.
Zoi Hayes’, had already had a restraining order against her after threw three mole corpses into their garden.
Zoi Hayes’s former home in Urchfont, Devizes, Wilts Credit: Solent
Zoi Hayes outside Salisbury Magistrates Court Credit: Solent
The quarrel has been ongoing since Peter and Corinne Rotherham moved to award-winning Urchfront in – which has been named the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s best-kept village for the last two years.
The semi-retired auditor and her IT worker/tree surgeon husband moved to the village in search of a quiet life.
They found their bungalow for £675,000 in 2011 and it seemed to tick every box with only one neighbour who was a woman living alone.
Over the last 15 years Hayes has cut a hole in her hedge and spied on the pair, thrown three rotting mole corpses into their garden and bashed her wheelie bin outside their bedroom window at 5.45am.
The Rotherham’s home where they were harassed by neighbour Zoi Hayes Credit: Solent
A restraining order came into place in 2021 after Hayes ‘damaged a single sweet pea flower’ Credit: Solent
After her a decade of disputes Hayes received a restraining order for damaging a sweat pea belonging to Peter and Corinne, 60 and 61.
The 68-year-old was ordered not to do anything that might “pester” her neighbours for five years.
Two years later she breached the court order and was handed a suspended sentence.
In July last year the Rotherhams were welcoming guests to their home for the first time in a “number of years” when Hayes switched on her mower.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Corinne said her guests weren’t being loud but just chatting over drinks and tapas when the lawnmower started up.
One guest then went to Hayes property and recorded her with a secret camera. She admitted to starting the lawnmower in order to wind up her neighbours.
She hoped the noise would “frustrate and annoy” the pair.
Hayes could now face up to a year in prison for breaking the restraining order.
Corrinne continued: “She made our lives absolute hell for 14 or 15 years. It was like living with a Peeping Tom who was absolutely obsessed with you.
“She cut a hole in the hedge so she could look through so we had to grow it out. We avoided her like the plague. It was just hell. She was a compulsive liar and a neighbour from hell.”
Hayes has appeared at Salisbury magistrate’s court and admitted to harassment by breach of restraining order.
Christiane Finlay, for the prosecution, argued Hayes had deliberately breached the order.
“The brief facts of the matter are that Mrs Rotherham had been Mrs Hayes’s neighbour for 15 years with a longstanding history of a neighbourhood dispute between the parties.
“She had a previous conviction on February 23, 2021, and she had a restraining order in place until February 22, 2026, after she damaged property.
“The conditions were to not contact, pester or annoy Corinne Rotherham or Peter Rotherham.
“She breached the order in 2023. You’ll see from her previous convictions that she received a suspended sentence of six weeks for 12 months.
“This is a matter which is at best a deliberate breach, as what she’s done effectively is pestering the victim by leaving her lawnmower on while the victim, Mrs Rotherham, was having a dinner party with six of her friends.
“She hasn’t been able to do that for a number of years but to frustrate and annoy her, Ms Hayes has put her lawnmower on and just left it there.
“One of the party attendees spoke to her about it and asked her to switch it off, which she did do.”
Defence barrister Raymond Tan pointed out that Hayes had moved out of the property.
“It’s clear they don’t get on. She was living there for 20 years and they lived next to each other for 15 years,” he said.
Hayes will be sentenced next month.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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