‘Offensive and unacceptable!’ Woman forced to pay £37,000 after trapping neighbour’s cat in cage and playing frog noises

A London judge has ordered a woman to pay £37,000 in damages after trapping her neighbour’s Bengal cat in a cage and harassing the family with electronic frog noises.

Josie Hitchens, 56, subjected employment barrister Tim Sheppard and his wife Elena Garcia-Alvarez to years of harassment at their Finsbury Park home.

Judge Tracey Bloom described the impact on the couple as “appalling” and issued a five-year court order barring Hitchens from further acts of nuisance or harassment.

“There was an onslaught of harassment for many years such that the claimants were barely able to go into their garden,” Judge Bloom said.

Sheppard, 56, and his wife Garcia-Alvarez, 55, moved into their £1.3million five-bedroom home in Finsbury Park in 2006.

The trouble began immediately after they moved in, when Hitchens knocked on their door.

“I asked her whether she wanted to come in and have a glass of wine, but she refused and started asking about our cat and whether we let it out, and that her cats were the dominant ones in the area,” Mr Sheppard told the court.

The initial encounter set the tone for what would become years of neighbourhood conflict.

The court heard that Hitchens trapped the couple’s Bengal cat Harry in her garden and “left him in the trap all day”.

Though Hitchens denied imprisoning the cat, she was confronted with a letter she had sent threatening to trap their pet.

Judge Bloom rejected Hitchens’ denial, stating: “She said in her evidence that she never trapped Harry in the garden, but in her letter sent in 2006 or 2007 she threatened to do exactly that.”

The harassment ultimately forced the family to find Harry a new home.

Hitchens deployed additional methods of harassment, including electronic frogs with motion sensors that created persistent noise disturbance.

“Much as this might sound trivial, if you take account of the context of the whole behaviour and the noise nuisance then it becomes really disturbing,” Sheppard told the court.

The neighbour also deliberately targeted a tree outside the couple’s front door as a toilet spot for her dogs.

“When it is warm, the stench from the area around the small tree which is right in front of our home is overpowering,” Garcia-Alvarez said.

Judge Bloom confirmed Hitchens “did encourage the dogs to do their business outside the claimants’ house”.

The court heard Hitchens even inserted a wooden plank to help her cats access the couple’s garden.

The harassment had a devastating impact on the couple’s quality of life, forcing them to make significant changes to their home.

“We now rarely use our back garden due to anxiety about what noise, or verbal comments might be directed our way by her. We also socialise less at home than we would have,” Sheppard said in his evidence.

The couple attempted to sell their house three times without success.

They spent thousands of pounds on home modifications, including double glazing, to minimise the impact of Hitchens’ behaviour.

“The noise caused by Ms Hitchens means we cannot relax in our own home and feel constantly on edge,” Sheppard added.

Judge Bloom awarded Sheppard and Garcia-Alvarez £37,000 in damages, ruling that Hitchens had “pursued a long campaign of harassment by many different strands and methods over many years”.

“This behaviour goes far beyond the usual vicissitudes of modern living, it is genuinely offensive and unacceptable,” the judge added.

Commenting on Sheppard’s evidence about the impact on his family, Judge Bloom noted: “This statement could not set out more clearly the appalling impact which this lady’s actions have had on the claimants.”

The five-year court order now bars Hitchens from any further acts of nuisance or harassment against her neighbours.