‘Thug’ neighbour filmed shoving elderly lady in ‘frightening’ incident as row boils over
An enraged thug shoved his elderly neighbour as she tried to get into her flat.
The footage captured by a doorbell camera shows 55 year old Michael Tayler emerging from his front door just as pensioner Julia Wermig-Morgan, 70, returned to her flat opposite.
The confrontation came amid an ongoing dispute between the two neighbours at a block of flats in Burton Bradstock, Dorset on May 20 this year.
It has resulted in each of them being issued with restraining orders against each other.
Weymouth Magistrates Court heard psychotherapist and Oxford University postgraduate Wermig-Morgan, dislikes her neighbour and that Tayler “positively loathes her.”
Wermig-Morgan had previously accused her neighbour of being a ‘drug dealer’ who wanted to ‘take over’ the block of flats in which they live. Tayler, who is unemployed, has denied the claims.
The 70 year old owns her one-bedroom property, which is worth around £200,000.
Relations between the two are believed to have turned sour soon after he moved into his housing association flat opposite Wermig-Morgan just over three years ago.
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Following a number of earlier incidents, she said: “He has rages. I called 999 before when he was trying to break down my door, but the police didn’t come for 30 hours and when they did, they didn’t take a statement.
“He tried to tell them that I was harassing him. He is 6ft 4ins and 18 stones and I am 5ft 4ins and disabled but I stand up to him.”
MailOnline reports how the court heard that the attack on Wermig-Morgan was completely unprovoked and unnecessary by Tayler who was watching his neighbour return through the spyhole of his front door.
The court was told that the neighbours live on the same landing with their front doors facing each other and that Wermig-Morgan was already subject of an earlier restraining order instructing her to keep away from Tayler, which she had adhered to.
Prosecuting, Charles Nightingale said: “It would be best if they ignored each other, but the defendant simply failed to do so on May 20. Ms Wermig-Morgan came in from the outside area.
“The incident commenced by him coming out of his property. He has a spyhole in the middle of his door. He was either waiting, looking through the spy hole, or he happened to look through and decided to have a confrontation rather than avoid it. She has done nothing to cause this incident.
“She’s an older lady and feels her life is being made a misery by the defendant. She has complied with the order against her and wishes the defendant would just leave her alone. They should both be capable of ignoring each other.”
Defending Tayler, Simon Lacey said: “This dislike is one that has been going on for some time. Mr Tayler says he doesn’t loathe this lady, he wants to help her but as you can see things are not going well. He feels that she is the cause of all the problems, she probably has an opposite view of him.
“He seems to have come to the end of his tether, he’s gone out and she’s just coming back in and he pushes her as we have seen. A wiser person would have avoided and ignored her. This is a neighbour issue. They need to avoid each other so things don’t get out of hand again.”
Following the hearing on December 20, Tayler was issued with a 12-month restraining order by magistrate Tobert Ford, who warned him that he should avoid his neighbour in future or could face being sent to jail.
Tayler was also given a two-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £26 victim surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.
Afterwards, Wermig-Morgan said she was ‘absolutely furious’ Tayler had been ‘let off’.
She said: “He is a thug and what he did was bloody terrifying. They have let him off lightly. I am absolutely furious.”