A businessman in Essex was handed an 18-week jail term suspended for 18 months, a £650 fine, a five-year restraining order and a separate five-year criminal behaviour order after a court found he conducted a two-year campaign of harassment against his next-door neighbours.
Peter Rushton, 43, was found guilty in his absence at Chelmsford Magistrates Court in June of criminal damage, causing harassment without violence and failing to comply with a community protection order, after prosecutors said his conduct left the couple distressed and fearful. Last week Southend Magistrates Court imposed the criminal behaviour order following a police application.
Prosecutors said the dispute began in 2022 after a farmer cleared a pile of rubbish in a field behind the homes. The field backed onto Rushton’s workshop and neighbours told police he mistakenly believed they had dumped the material there and later sent them an invoice for £3,500. The neighbours have lived in the semi-rural Southminster area of Maldon District for about 20 years.
Court papers and victim statements set out a pattern of behaviour that included throwing glass at the neighbours’ detached house, smashing roof tiles, damaging an aviary housing about 20 lovebirds and repeatedly setting off alarms connected to a home CCTV system to alert on the couple’s movements. The victims said the CCTV cameras were positioned to sweep across their property and that Rushton filmed them and triggered alarms when they returned home.
The woman who lived next door told officers the harassment escalated and affected her husband’s health to the point that the couple temporarily moved into a static caravan earlier this year. She told police Rushton sent an anonymous letter to Maldon District Council alleging the husband was under investigation for child sexual offences; forensic checks on the letter produced fingerprints the council said matched Rushton’s. Police included that allegation in the harassment case.
Investigating officer PC Luke Jones, who worked with Maldon District Council, said the campaign breached community protection warnings and notices and caused the victims "acute distress." "Rushton conducted a sustained campaign of abuse and harassment against the couple over two years," PC Jones said. "He used a home-fitted CCTV device to monitor the victims, playing alarms and bombarding them with abuse when they returned home and he even damaged an aviary."
The criminal behaviour order contains a series of prohibitions designed to prevent further contact or harassment. It bars Rushton from damaging the victims’ property, sending any correspondence to them, throwing objects into their garden, or spraying water or other substances at their property or vehicles. Additional conditions prevent him from harassing, assaulting or intimidating anyone in the neighbourhood, from using abusive or threatening language and from interfering with emergency service workers. Breach of the orders could lead to imprisonment or further fines, courts were told.
Rushton, who runs a plant services business founded by his grandfather and lives in a nearby Victorian house with his father, did not attend the June hearing and denied the charges. He declined to comment after the latest order was imposed. A friend of Rushton told media the dispute "should never have got to the police" and described it as "just over a pile of rubbish outside his workshop."
The victims said they have returned to their home in recent weeks after putting the property on the market during the height of the harassment. A friend of the couple said the episode had taken a significant emotional and health toll, particularly on the husband, a self-employed builder, who was prescribed medication as a result. The woman said the anonymous allegation to the council could have damaged her husband’s business if it had been believed.
Maldon District Council and Essex Police worked together during the case, the officer said, with the council managing noise complaints and police pursuing criminal action. The authorities said they would continue to pursue reports of anti-social behaviour and work with partners to secure long-term solutions in neighbourhood disputes.
The suspended sentence and orders mark the culmination of a prolonged local dispute that began over a cleared pile of waste and escalated to repeated incidents of property damage, alleged false allegations and intrusive surveillance. The court rulings aim to prevent further contact and protect the victims while leaving open the prospect of custodial penalties if the defendant breaches the conditions imposed by the magistrates.