Noise nuisance is a serious blight on people’s lives but, with the right legal advice, you do not have to put up with it. In one case, a tower block resident was handed a stiff prison sentence after making a vulnerable neighbour’s life a misery.
After receiving complaints about the tenant, his social housing landlord obtained an injunction against him, forbidding him from causing a nuisance to his neighbours. However, a series of incidents ensued in which his downstairs neighbour was subjected to the sound of screaming and banging at all hours of the night.
The woman suffered health difficulties and was heavily pregnant at the time of the first incident and the mother of a week-old baby at the time of the last. It was plain that she had reached the end of her tether. The tenant had also subjected the landlord’s representatives to foul-mouthed verbal abuse and had been captured on CCTV intimidating an elderly man in the block’s common parts.
A judge found him in contempt of court in breaching the injunction four times. He had shown utter disregard for his neighbours, who were entitled to live in peace and harmony with other residents of the block. In the circumstances, the judge found that only a custodial sentence would suffice and jailed him for eight weeks.