Neighbour 'fried fish from next-door pond'

A pensioner accused of stealing her neighbours' ornamental koi carp and openly frying them was ordered yesterday to pay the couple more than £10,000 in damages.

Ellen Jones, 75, had been locked in a long dispute with Mark and Jane Fowler over her alleged activities on land surrounding their £450,000 farmhouse in Newchapel, Surrey. A court was told that Ms Jones allegedly allowed illegal raves on her land and threw dog dirt at the Fowlers' fence.

The Fowlers had bought their 13th-century property from Ms Jones in 1984. She continued to live in a second house next door and farm 90 acres around them.

The Fowlers claimed Ms Jones allowed her farm to be used as a cannabis factory, blocked their drive with obstacles and ignored court orders banning her from keeping horses and insisting she silence her dogs.

At Lewes County Court in Sussex, Ms Jones, a former Second World War landgirl, was ordered to pay £10,200 in damages to her neighbours for the series of incidents, stretching back 18 years.

Recorder Christopher Morris-Coole, who also ruled Ms Jones should pay two-thirds of her neighbours' legal costs, said: "In duration and form, the nuisance caused was substantial, let there be no doubt about that."

Matters between the two parties reached a low when a number of valuable koi carp went missing from the Fowlers' garden pond. Mr Fowler, 45, an accountant, said he noticed Ms Jones and a friend eating the fish freshly fried outside her home. The friend called across to him: "Nice day for a fry up."

Lawyers for the pensioner, who dismissed the koi carp incident as fantasy, alleged that the couple, who in turn were ordered to pay Miss Jones £1,159 for an unpaid water bill, had become obsessed with her.

The judge said he had never known such a bad dispute between neighbours and urged them to end their differences.