Noisy neighbour used barricades to thwart officials

A Lowestoft woman used furniture to barricade her front door to stop environmental health officers seizing her stereo and television, a court heard yesterday.

Margaret Jones Bloss was visited by officers from Waveney District Council on May 29 after a neighbour complained of loud noise coming from her flat in Northgate.

Andrew Reynolds, Waveney District Council's principal environmental health officer, told Lowestoft magistrates court yesterday that the loud noise, which sounded like televised football commentary and match reports, could be heard across the road in Normanston Drive and over the sound of passing traffic.

He said that as Mrs Jones Bloss was breaching a noise abatement order which had been served on her in August last year, he made an application for a warrant for her electrical amplification items to be seized.

When officers returned to her first floor flat on June 2 to execute the warrant, they could not get an answer at the door and so drilled through the barrel of the lock.

Mr Reynolds said: 'There was some muffled shouting from inside and the sound of furniture being moved about and the man drilling the lock reported that the door handle had been wedged from inside.

Very shortly after this, there were further sounds of more furniture being stacked up against the door. I decided that it would not be safe to attempt to effect an entry against such vigorous attempts to prevent it.'

The officers left and managed to seize her equipment later that day.

Mrs Jones Bloss, who represented herself at her trial yesterday after pleading not guilty to contravening an abatement notice and obstructing environmental health officers, denied causing a noise nuisance and said that the council flats where she lives have previously been damaged by other residents in the past.

District Judge David Cooper, who was sitting in Lowestoft yesterday, found the case against Mrs Jones Bloss proved on both charges.

She was given a two-year anti-social behaviour order banning her from making noise which can be heard outside her flat.

She was fined �200 and ordered to pay �450 in costs. Judge Cooper also ordered to forfeiture of her audio equipment, DVDs and CDs.