ASBO for 71-year-old

8:26am Sunday 2nd March 2008

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An elderly woman had an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) confirmed at Isleworth Crown Court.

Catharine Roberts, 71, of North Road, Southall, has spent the past 16 years abusing everyone with whom she comes into contact, including next door neighbours, local shop keepers and officers from Ealing Council.

In January Magistrates handed her an ASBO banning her from causing "harassment, alarm or distress" to anyone within the M25.

The terms also forbid her from remaining on premises from which she has been asked to leave, using "abusive, insulting or threatening behaviour to any officer of Ealing Council" and interfering in any way with the property of people who have complained about her.

Prosecutor Kuljit Bhogal listed a litany of incidents starting in May 1991, with the abuse of her neighbours, the Connolly family, followed years later by abuse of their successors the Adewal family, a local window cleaner Kevin Gibbs and incidents at the local Sanghera Cash and Carry.

Her verbal abuse was mostly racist remarks directed at white or Asian people, whom she professed to "hate".

She was also accused of throwing produce from the shop into the street, hurling things at cars parked near her driveway, including a piece of hard-board at Mr Gibbs' car when he said he would move it.

She "chucked a load of rubbish" into the front garden of her neighbours' house and abused contractors sent by the council to do repairs, said Ms Bhogal.

Ms Roberts, who is black, was called in to interviews with housing officers when she told them "she would kill her neighbours, while shouting and making accusations of racism," said counsel.

"She repeatedly abused Mrs Connolly calling her a whore and a white witch and in 1994 she was caught threatening a five-year-old with an iron bar."

The behaviour continued right through the 1990s despite numerous warnings and a string of complaints, said counsel.

Her solicitor, Zaki Hashmi, did not appeal against most of the order but pointed out that her behaviour was usually restricted to a small area around her home, and asked that the ASBO should be similarly restricted.

But Judge Sam Katkhuda, sitting with magistrates, confirmed the order and widened the area to the whole of England and Wales.

As Ms Roberts left court with a costs bill of more than £1,700, he warned her that if she breached the order she could go to prison for up to five years.