Dorothy Evans denies harassing the couple about their boundary

Dorothy Evans has previously been convicted of harassing her former neighbours in Abergavenny.

A couple who moved into the property on the other side allege that she soon shouted abuse at them and took a sledge hammer to a wall between their houses.

On Friday, Mrs Evans denied harassment and criminal damage when she appeared at Blackwood Magistrates' Court.

Prosecution witness Leon Stafford told the court that trouble began the day after he and his fianc�e Gemma had moved from London to their "dream home" in Abergavenny.

He said they were aware that there had been a disagreement between Mrs Evans and her previous neighbours, but thought it had been a personal matter and not one related to a boundary dispute.

He said the pair took a bunch of flowers round to Mrs Evans to smooth relations but instead endured a lengthy rant from her about the previous occupants of their house.

Phillip Morris, prosecuting, said: "There followed a series of events whereby Mrs Evans set out to make the Staffords' lives difficult and in essence a misery."

'Digging at wall'

The court heard Mrs Evans hit her side of the wall with a hammer just inches away from the head of Mrs Stafford's father-in-law.

The pensioner was said to have dug a trench along the boundary between the two houses and regularly dug away at her neighbours' garden.

Gemma Stafford, a solicitor, said that she felt that Mrs Evans was "trying to move the boundary of her own accord" by digging away at it".

Terry Vaux, defending, said Mrs Evans felt that the boundary between the two properties was six inches out of line and that there was a problem with the passage of water between the two properties.

He told Mr Stafford: "You are being somewhat paranoid in that two professional young people, well able to express themselves, must accept that as a 79-year-old substantially deaf lady feeling strongly about a property dispute and expressing that to you is not harassment."

Mrs Evans was fined in 2004 for six breaches of a restraining order imposed after her 1999 conviction for harassment of another neighbour.

The case was adjourned until Tuesday.