Catherine Searle ‘used her parrot as a weapon’ in a campaign of harassment against her neighbours (Picture: KMG/SWNS)

An 81-year-old pensioner used her parrot as a ‘weapon’ to ‘torture’ her neighbours and forced them to listen to ‘seven hours of continuous Toy Story’ during a three-year campaign of harassment.

Catherine Searle hurled dog poo over Paul and Lydia Appleton’s fence, scratched the bonnet of their car and ramped up the volume of her TV and radio to ‘overstimulate’ the bird into screeching for ‘days on end’, a court heard.

Her victims, from Seal in Kent, described the piercing squawks as ‘Chinese torture’.

Speaking about the ordeal, Mr Appleton said: ‘On one occasion we had Toy Story being played in her kitchen on a continuous loop. It was being played really really loud. She was over in her other neighbour’s garden having a drink and laughing. It was just noise. I’m guessing it was about seven hours of continuous Toy Story.’




His wife added: ‘She waits for us to go into the back garden when we wish to relax and then will put on loud music or the TV to get the bird to “perform” again and thereby stopping us from enjoying the peace and quiet of the garden. We have neighbours who shun us because of this.’

The widowed pensioner was given a community order in 2017 for flinging the dog poo before admitting criminal damage and harassment part-way through a trial at Maidstone Magistrates’ Court in December.

She was handed a restraining order, but her 70-day prison sentence was suspended for 12 months.

In a victim impact statement Mrs Appleton said she feels ‘nervous’ for her husband after Searle once placed sharp tacks underneath the wheels of his van, fearing a repeat could see him ‘hurt or cause a terrible accident’.

The nightmare neighbour was also caught on CCTV smearing grease over the bonnets of their vehicles almost 40 times in 2018.

Maidstone Magistrates’ Court heard Searle would ‘overstimulate’ her parrot into screeching for ‘days on end’ (Picture: David Anstiss Geograph)

Mrs Appleton added: ‘She’s continuously finding ways to overstimulate her parrot for days on end by playing the television loudly and is using it as a weapon.

‘She even leaves her house, going out, leaving the back door and windows open so the bird noise can be heard wherever we are in our house.’

The couple, both 61, say relationships with other neighbours have deteriorated because people on the outside can’t believe an old woman could be the problem.

Mr Appleton said: ‘The problem we have got, because she’s an old lady people want to believe the lies they are told “because she’s an old lady, we should respect her”.

‘I try to be nice, but she doesn’t deserve any kind of respect. Our ultimate aim is just to enjoy some nice peace and quiet – that’s absolutely it and we just cannot have it.

‘We went to the police because we were at our wits end. The police asked us to prosecute and we said “we don’t want to be the bad guys here. Give her a caution, give her a telling off and hopefully that will stop things”. But it didn’t.



‘This has come to court because we had nowhere else to go.’

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