Residents living beside a ‘volcanic neighbour from hell’ are furious after she was spared jail despite assaulting a woman and four police officers.
Anne Egglestone’s decade-long ‘campaign of abuse’ has seen her jailed several times after amassing 19 previous convictions for 74 offences.
These include violent behaviour towards locals and officers, pointing CCTV cameras into houses and bombarding police with abusive phone calls.
Terrified locals have revealed they feel like prisoners in their own homes and are desperate to sell up and move – but fear no one would buy them as they avoid even hanging their washing outside or putting their bins out.
One, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, complained: ‘We want to see her locked up. We’re living in fear.
‘What the police and the courts have done is ineffective and we are suffering. If we reported every incident, we’d be calling the police twice a week.’
Egglestone’s latest offence saw her arrested in extraordinary scenes, as an officer warns he is pointing a taser at her and shouts repeatedly: ‘Step out of the house, now.’
A Taser-wielding police officer pulls Anne Egglestone, 63, from her house after she assaulted a neighbour
As the 63-year-old nears the front door of her bungalow, the officer grabs her wrist to drag her outside and then onto the ground, before two colleagues rush over and restrain her.
Egglestone can be heard shouting ‘Oh’ loudly when the male officer first takes hold of her and then appears to scream loudly.
Four officers were assaulted during the incident on August 16 in a leafy suburban road in Thorpe St Andrew, near Norwich, amid reports of biting and kicking.
They acted after a woman was assaulted and her mobile phone damaged when residents held a ‘quiet’ garden party for an elderly person.
The female victim, who also didn’t want to be named, told the Daily Mail: ‘She was making noises like a banshee. The police were called and then she went into her property.’
Egglestone was not remanded in custody and was back home within hours, meaning neighbours – many of whom have installed CCTV at their homes in case they are attacked – had little respite.
She appeared at Norwich Crown Court last week after admitting four counts of assaulting a constable, two counts of failing to comply with a Community Protection Notice, obstructing a constable, common assault and criminal damage.
Egglestone has been jailed several times for anti-social behaviour
The judge imposed an 18-week jail term, suspended for two years, and a three-year Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) under which she is banned from doing anything that causes a nuisance, disturbance or annoyance.
The defendant was also ordered to pay compensation and other costs amounting to almost £700.
Desperate locals said they fear the ‘dangerous’ behaviour will continue to escalate, with one saying: ‘She’s a neighbour from hell. She’s a volcano.’
Another said: ‘She’s the reason we’ve put cameras up. The verbal and physical abuse is a massive problem and we’re fearful of doing anything in our own gardens.’
Egglestone’s known list of offences dates back a decade. In March 2017, she was fined and handed a 26-week prison sentence at Norwich Magistrates’ Court for four public order offences after she was abusive towards a neighbour and their builder.
She had also contacted the police control room making unnecessary, rude and obstructive calls to staff – breaching a CBO imposed in April 2016 for similar offences.
At the time, beat manager PC Sean Phillips said: ‘This result goes to show that the courts and the police treat this type of anti-social behaviour with the utmost seriousness.’
Footage obtained by the Daily Mail shows the police officer pointing the Taser at Egglestone as he shouts: ‘Step out of the property, now.’
He then seizes her by the wrist as she moved towards the front door of her bungalow
Other officers rush forward to help restrain Egglestone as she is bundled to the ground
Egglestone appears to have been jailed again in October that year, receiving another 26-week custodial sentence and a two-year restraining order after she admitted criminal damage, public order offences and breaching her CBO.
Magistrates heard she had damaged a neighbour’s wooden fence with a hammer, was verbally aggressive towards the victim and attending officers and made unnecessary and rude calls to police.
The combative neighbour is next known to have been in trouble in April 2019, when she was charged with harassment after moving palm trees and disturbing neighbours by being loud and abusive.
She was also said to have made an offensive call to a domestic violence charity, Leeway, and breached her CBO by contacting police again.
In November 2019 she was jailed for two years at Norwich Crown Court after sending an offensive message to the same charity, breaching the CBO again by contacting police, and sending abusive messages. She also breached a suspended sentence order.
Prosecutor Eleanor Sheerin told the court neighbours had been left feeling anxious and ‘like prisoners in their own home’ after the defendant pointed a security camera into their home.
Judge Stephen Holt told Egglestone: ‘You have a long record of being extremely unpleasant to other people and a number of breaches of court orders. You are not a very nice piece of work.’
Egglestone arriving at court for a previous hearing
A 63-year-old female neighbour said after the hearing: ‘She’s created such a lot of tension and anxiety.
‘She was always verbally abusive – so much so that I didn’t like being out in the garden because she would look over the fence and stand watching.’
Another brush with the law came in 2023 when Egglestone admitted making ten abusive calls to police over ‘irrational’ fears that neighbours were trying to poison her dog by throwing grapes into her garden.
She was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence in March the following year.
Egglestone moved into the road in about 2015 and neighbours said problems appeared to have first flared up when a family over the road had building work done and she ‘took exception to their lorries and the noise, which was not excessive by any means’.
During a court appearance in 2023, her lawyer explained she ‘lives alone, having divorced ten years ago, and has two children – one in New Zealand and another she has no contact with’.
Sergeant Sam Barwick, from Norfolk Constabulary’s Operational Partnership Team, said after the latest court appearance: ‘We hope this CBO will act as a deterrent to Egglestone’s persistent anti-social behaviour.
‘This type of behaviour has a detrimental effect on those living around her and significantly impacts emergency service workers carrying out their duty.’
But a neighbour insisted: ‘We want her out of Spinney Close and out of our lives. She needs to be locked up.’
Another said: ‘She’s been screaming at elderly people, making children cry and shouting the most foul-mouthed abuse at people. It will continue until she is stopped.’
Egglestone became hostile when approached for a comment.
