A 72-year-old woman has been sentenced to 24 weeks in prison for breaking her neighbour's arm with a spade during a long-running row over a fence. June Iddon, a retired civil servant from Tarleton, Lancashire, was convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on Jeffrey Grundy, 62, after hitting him with the garden tool in November last year.
The incident occurred amid a dispute over a strip of land separating their properties on Hesketh Lane. Iddon had ignored a civil court ruling in favour of Mr Grundy regarding the boundary, the court heard. Sentencing at Preston Crown Court, Recorder Lesley Anderson QC said: 'Notwithstanding your age and physical frailty a message needs to be sent to you that your behaviour cannot be acceptable.'
Iddon, who is terminally ill, was led from the dock still shouting 'I'm innocent'. The court heard she had never married, had no children, and had lived in the same house her entire life, caring for her parents until they died. Mitigating, Louise Whaites described her as having a 'sad, isolated existence'.
Outside court, Mr Grundy expressed little sympathy, saying: 'If you've got someone crazy like that you can't sell your house. She's worse than the neighbour from hell. She's shown no remorse... I could have been in a wheelchair if I had not put my arm up.' He added that the sentence was 'immaterial' but that he would have 'a pleasant Christmas without her'.
