A 79-YEAR-OLD Abergavenny pensioner - once dubbed "the original neighbour from hell" by a judge - yesterday received a five-year anti-social behaviour order.

Dorothy Evans, of Park Crescent, was found guilty of harassing neighbours and damaging their property.

She was also fined £300 and ordered to pay £300 costs when she appeared at Blackwood magistrates court.

Chairman of the magistrates Mr Paul Wilkinson warned Evans that if she breached the order she was likely to be arrested and sent to prison.

He told Evans she had harassed neighbours Leon and Gemma Stafford by "digging their land, damaging their garden, removing their fence panels, shouting, ranting and raving, being uncivil, unreasonable, shaking her fists at Mrs Stafford and poking Mr Stafford in the chest".

The ASBO prohibits her from this kind of behaviour towards anyone in Park Crescent, Abergavenny, and Gwent.

The court was previously told the offences took place between October 10 and November 13 last year. Mr Phillip Morris, prosecuting, said Evans had also "growled" in Mrs Stafford's face. Evans had made the couple's lives a misery over a boundary dispute.

Evans told the court she was the joint owner of her home with her daughter. She has lived there for 15 years and there was a boundary dispute with the previous neighbour.

When the new neighbours moved in it was a chance for a fresh start, and the problem with the boundary fence being six inches too far over on her side had been discussed with them.

Mr Terry Vaux, defending, said his client was a very deaf lady almost 80 years old. The issue was one of a boundary dispute, which needed resolving soon in a civil court.

Mr Morris said Evans had a habit of harassing neighbours. She had been convicted three times prior to this case and restraining orders in the past had not worked, he said.

Last August Evans was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay £1,500 costs for breaching a 1999 restraining order to stop harassing her neighbours after a feud.

Judge David Morris then described Evans as an "evil-minded old woman" who took a "perverse delight" in distressing her neighbours. At an earlier hearing he had called her "the original neighbour from hell".