nieghbor is making life hell

[Satsouma]

Hi

Im looking for legal advice please A nieghbour & her family have been harassing us for around 18mths. They moved in and when they asks to borrow some tools we said no as we dont own the ones they needed. They didn't belive us and they have been corsing problems since.

We got a ufeey camra for our door as her biggest son keeps making rude comments and threats. We called the police about 6 weeks ago coz it got bad. we had a video of them out on the cul de sac were we live. the policeman told them to leave us alone. they checked our camra an were happy covered our house an a little bit in the road where my huby parks his ford ranger. they hav called my hubby a kiddyfiddler an allsorts. it.rlly making life bad

we had a letter shoved throgh our door saying they want our camera footage as they think we have been recording them secretly or they will get the police on us. the camra is by oor door and although their bunglow is seen in the background you cant sees anything. the police are still lookin at their harassment but.i dunt now what to do. they is still harassasing us by sending us notes. im scared for my kids safety and mine. hubby works away alot so its just us in the house so why we got the camra. we dont watch them idiots its just something my familly is safe.

id tried to look on google but it confuse me evn more. sory I have dyselxica. some says I dont interact with the neighbor some say I have to give the video. do I report to the poloce again? they just wont leave is alone.

Is your house owned? Is theirs? Are any of you housing association or council housing?

both own

What exactly are they doing to harass and what do the notes say?

her eldest sits waching our house. he makes.out like he is going to pull over an start something when Im out walking the kids to school. postin stuff on FB about us, saying things as we walks past calling my hubby a kiddy molster

the note sayd that they now we have video of them as the polic said we did an they want it or they goin to report us for gdp. they set off the ufeey camra by coming to oor house baundry line. police told them it allowed to record a public place evn more so wen rhey are harrasasing us.it more stress an im scared.

I am aware that reporting problems with neighbours has to be disclosed when you sell your home. But this behaviour is nuts.

I'd personally be contacting the Police again and asking specifically what they can do to protect you from the harassment you are describing here.

There is nothing else you can do.

The other option is to try have a conversation with the neighbours. But I think it won't work in this situation and it might feel too intimidating for you which I understand.

I'd ask the Police tomorrow to contact you with details of what they can and will do in response here.

I dont want to talk to them. I felte sick jus writing this post. they are nasty an I dont kno how they will go.

I dont know where I stand wit the camra as the police said went they saw me it was all good but nieghbor says police told her we was looking at their hosue only. we arent. im woried to step out my dorr

ty for ur replys x

I don't think you have much choice but to tell the Police - saying to them 'look, I'm scared of these people. I'm alone alot here. They are intimidating in their behaviour towards me. They do this and that. What can you do here to help deal with this problem? My camera is for security only. I just want to live in peace and feel harassed. What will you be able to do here?' And make sure someone bloody calls you back. You have to be assertive and polite at the same time.

OP, the best advice I can give here...get off social media. It really causes alot of stress for people. It can be used to bully and harass people. I would never publicly participate because I too am a bit vulnerable and I know FB for example would make this worse. If the neighbours think you are on it and can read posts or receive messages,they will harass you through that. Just come off it for a bit.

People you love can contact you through WhatsApp.

Is it the safer neighbourhood team from the police who have been involved? If not request that they come out. Give them screen shots of any social media posts these people are putting up about you, along with any footage you have of them coming near/on your property and notes they’ve put through your door. Report what they have said about your husband. Also report it to the council (you can usually do this online). Both have a responsibility to deal with antisocial behaviour. Report anything that happens when it happens to the non-emergency police number or get the contact details of whoever the SNT officer is that responds/is responsible for your area. Even if they cannot do anything about Particular incidents, you’re building a documented log of it all, which will be needed if things escalate.

I would also recommend that you use your phone to record you leaving and entering the street to make sure that you pick up any verbal abuse that may occur outside of what your doorbell covers. Use voice memos rather than the camera as seeing you holding up the phone to record will antagonise the situation. They won’t know if you are recording sound with the phone in your hand/pocket though.

The basics...

Firstly, the below only applies when footage is recorded and stored. If your camera is 'live only' and no recordings are made, data protection laws do not apply.

Your camera shouldn't record outside the boundary line of your property, eg, your driveway/garden. If it does - you say it captures public land where your DH parks - GDPR regs do apply.

You must have a legitimate reason for capturing the footage outside your property. Your DH parks his car there and works away often, so wants to ensure that his family/property are safe, particularly in light of some alleged harassment; this seems like a legitimate reason.

You should be angling the camera so that it captures as little footage outside of your boundary/the car as possible.

Make a written statement explaining why you’re using CCTV or a doorbell camera and for what purpose. You can give a copy to your neighbor if they ask.

You should have a clear, visible sign on your property informing people that there is a camera in use and that they may be captured.

Any footage you store should be stored safely - eg password protected in the cloud. Most modern cameras/doorbells will offer compliant storage as standard.

You should not keep footage longer than necessary, unless you have a legitimate reason. You should have a regular deletion schedule, eg, once a week/fortnight. Your provider may do this automatically, but it's your responsibility. Footage of your neighbor harassing you, damaging your property etc could be legitimately held outside of this as evidence to be passed to the authorities.

If your neighbor (or any member of the public) requests that you delete any footage of them, you should do so within a month. Similarly, if they request a copy of the footage, you must provide it within a month. This is unless you have a legitimate reason for keeping it (eg, as above, evidence of a crime), but you should inform them of this.

You should not record audio outside of your boundary line - following a recent court case this can be seen as invading privacy.

Under no circumstances should you ever share footage of someone, either privately (eg, WhatsApp) or publicly (eg, streaming or uploading to Facebook).

I've responded about the harassment in a separate post as its a separate issue.

postin stuff on FB about us, saying things as we walks past calling my hubby a kiddy molster

What are they saying about you on Facebook? If they are making the above accusation, this is serious libel and you can take them to court. You will need to take professional legal advice on this. Screenshot every instance, also note/screenshot if you can where it's being posted - Is it on their personal profile, or in a local community group? Something posted to a private profile with two friends would be seen as less damaging than something posted to a public local community group with 10,000 members, for example, so this is very important information.

If the accusations are being made verbally, this is slander and more difficult to prove without evidence.

Both libel and slander are civil matters, and very expensive/stressful/time consuming to prosecute.

However, if these accusations are being shouted at you in the street, in public, along with other unwanted behavior that is genuinely making you feel threatened/distressed, this likely qualifies as harassment, which is a criminal matter. It must have happened on more than one occasion and be obviously unwanted (eg, you've told them to stop...although with this particular accusation the bar for unwanted is almost certainly met by default).

You should evidence as much as you can, and report every instance to the police in the first instance (non-emergency, unless there is an immediate threat) and any LA/neighborhood safety teams in your area.

Remember though, a letter through your door asking you to provide/delete footage of a person taken outside your boundary is not harassment (unless it contains threatening/abusive language, eg "If you don't send me that footage by tomorrow I'm going to do X, Y or Z") and you must comply unless you have a legitimate reason not to.

her eldest sits waching our house.

From where? This is unlikely to be considered actionable unless he's trespassing on your property to do so, using equipment to peep through windows, recording, behaving in a threatening/intimidating manner etc.

If they've made legitimate requests to you to delete footage of them and you haven't complied, they may feel harassed and be 'keeping an eye on you' as an alternative to installing their own camera.

Plus how do you know he's doing this? You're effectively watching him, watching you.

he makes.out like he is going to pull over an start something when Im out walking the kids to school.

What is he doing exactly? Driving past, looking at you, or something more?

If it's the former, ignore him and walk away. He likely has a legitimate reason to be driving near his house and while you're embroiled in this 'feud' he's obviously going to be giving you the side-eye and cursing you under his breath. He probably thinks you're doing the same to him.

However, if you have reason to believe that he's specifically driving that way to follow/intimidate you, or he's verbally threatening/insulting you, or driving in a way that you feel is putting you in danger, record it, get to somewhere you feel safe as quickly as possible (even if it's knocking on the door of the nearest house) and call the police.

The police won't do anything about cameras so ignore them. Report everything!
Record everything, on your mobile you can record anywhere it is fixed cameras that can't be recording in private places but even then there are processes.
We have had the same problems.
Just keep reporting everything and tell the police how you are feeling. I have been where you are now & honestly it's horrible.

This 👍🏼👍🏼 and block them on everything so they can't contact you and can't see anything about you. Block anyone that you know is associated to them too.