Wisteria-killing woman hit neighbour with crutch

A "genuinely out of control" woman has been found guilty of destroying her neighbour's wisteria plant before repeatedly hitting her with a crutch.

Atidel Boutara Cook was convicted of criminal damage after destroying the flowering plant belonging to her upstairs neighbour Pei Wong and then and assaulting her.

Cook, 50, who denied both offences, swore at Wong and hit her once on the forehead and twice on the chest with her crutch after being confronted about cutting down the plant last December, Highbury Magistrates' Court heard.

Wong and her husband Louis Scott own the freehold of their Victorian house in Tottenham and live upstairs, while Boutara Cook lives in the ground floor flat.

Wong said her husband had seen the defendant cut down the wisteria and pull out other plants in their front garden.

The couple, who said they did not usually interact with Boutara Cook despite having been neighbours for 20 years, went downstairs together to confront her, with Wong filming the encounter on her phone.

Scott said the couple had asked their neighbour "in calm, polite terms" to stop what she was doing and told her they were not happy with it.

He said they had not approached Boutara Cook who "rather lost control of herself, started screaming abuse and waving her arms" and grabbed his wife's phone.

He added: "She also then came up to my wife and struck her a number of times with her crutch."

He told the court: "I was genuinely worried for my wife's safety at this point because the behaviour of our neighbour seemed genuinely out of control," adding that he "caught" his wife as she fell backwards after being struck.

Asked how she felt at the time of the alleged attack, Wong said: "I would say that I was shaking.

"I couldn't believe she repeatedly continued to hit me even though I didn't say a single word to her."

Video from Wong's phone played to the court shows the defendant standing outside the front door holding large garden shears and Scott can be heard saying: "This is really horrible, you doing this."

The phone was then dropped onto the floor and screaming and shouting can be heard in the background, including repeated swearing and what the judge described as a "metallic-like sound, thumping on to Ms Wong which was consistent of the sound of a crutch".

Cook, who attended court with what appeared to be a red walking frame, told the court she accepted she had cut the wisteria but said the plant had been "dead" and was affecting the air quality inside her flat.

She was told twice by the judge not to interrupt while Wong and Scott gave evidence.

"I'm not here to litigate 20 years of problems between neighbours," the judge said.

"You just stay away from each other," he added to the defendant as he released her on conditional bail ahead of sentencing on 6 May at the same court.

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