GANGSTALKERS ARRESTED

PERPS GOT THEIR KARMA

Mother and daughter who ‘terrorized’ neighbors with campaign of abuse jailed

Susan Chen, 61, and her solicitor daughter Linda Lu, 35, were jailed for five-and-a-half years on Friday for their ‘malicious’ behaviour.

Stephanie Wareham

Friday 06 December 2024 12:48 EST

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Linda Lu (left) and her mother Susan Chen (right) were jailed on Friday for a campaign of abuse directed at their next-door neighbours (Lincolnshire Police/PA)

A mother and her lawyer daughter who carried out a campaign of harassment against their neighbours have been jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Susan Chen, 61, and Linda Lu, 35, were caught on camera banging loudly, playing music, laughing hysterically and shouting at their rented semi-detached home in Linga Lane in the Lincolnshire village of Bassingham, as part of what a judge called “persistent and malicious” behaviour towards their neighbours James and Lynn Smith.

Chen shone torches at the home of Mr and Mrs Smith in the dark for around an hour, repeatedly kicked a metal bin, smashed bottles against the adjoining fence, spied on them and their children when they tried to spend time in their own garden and followed them when they left the house.

A mobile phone playing the 1920s song The Laughing Policeman on repeat and other loud music was also left in the back garden underneath an umbrella in a bid to cause “maximum distress”, Judge James House KC said as he sentenced them at Lincoln Crown Court on Friday.

The pair were convicted in October of one count each of stalking their neighbours after a five-week trial in which they represented themselves and were “extremely challenging”, the judge said.

They failed to convince the jury of their claims that they were the victims, not the instigators.

The court heard Chen and Lu verbally abused their neighbours, even accusing Mr Smith, a teacher, of being a paedophile, a “freak” and a “f****** weirdo” during their campaign of harassment which started after an argument over the cutting of a hedge on July 18 2023.

The mother and daughter threatened legal action, filmed the incident and even stopped passing cars telling the drivers to call the police after Mr Smith trimmed the hedge between their properties as he usually did.

Judge House said the pair had shown no remorse for the “deeply unpleasant” allegations they had levied against their neighbour, adding that they were “figments of the defendants’ own delusions”.

In a victim impact statement read to the court by prosecution counsel Steve Taylor, Mrs Smith said the family are actively looking to move away from the dream home they had wanted to live in forever after the “onslaught” they faced.

Mr Smith added that their happiness at the home that they had enjoyed for 12 years was “shattered” as soon as Chen, her ex-partner and her daughter moved in in March 2023.

He said: “Why would someone take pleasure in what Chen and Lu have done to us? This was much more than a simple neighbour dispute – it was calculated, manipulative and persistent.”

Mr Taylor told the court that while Lu, a qualified solicitor, had no previous convictions, Chen had attacked an elderly couple in 2020 that she encountered in a park near Newark while she was running.

Having become “aggrieved” that the couple, who had a number of dogs with them, were blocking her path, she verbally abused them and, on subsequent occasions, spat at them and hit them and a woman who tried to intervene with a walking pole.

Given 20 minutes by the judge to provide mitigation, Chen told the court “we were the real victims of their stalking” and said their neighbours had “made our lives a living hell”.

Lu said there was “no evidence” her and her mother’s actions caused any fear or distress to their neighbours, and that what was recorded were “private conversations that happened inside a private home … clearly they were random conversations that weren’t about anyone in particular”.

Judge House rejected those claims, saying they were determined to “destroy the Smiths’ peace and quiet”, and terrorised them in their own home in what was one of the most serious cases of this nature that the court has had to deal with.

As well as ordering that they serve half of their five-and-a-half-year sentence in prison before being eligible for release on licence, he imposed an indeterminate restraining order on them both, forbidding them from contacting a number of neighbours or their workplaces, from going anywhere they may expect to see those neighbours, and from entering the village of Bassingham.

A separate order was put in place forbidding them from contacting two named police officers who were involved in the investigation.

Judge House said: “This was a complete persecution that destroyed their wellbeing and their ability to enjoy their own property.

“Both Mr and Mrs Smith have shown remarkable courage in standing up to the defendants. Their lives have been turned upside by the harassment of them.

“Mrs Smith has required counselling and medication. Mr Smith has also required medication.

“It remains to be seen if they will be able to put these events behind them in a house they have previously enjoyed and loved.”

In a statement released after the sentencing, lead investigating officer Pc Jordan Bathie-Drexler said: “This case might be mistaken as a neighbour dispute. But what on the face of it looked like ASB, was actually offending against the victims that took place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, over a three-month period until the offenders were remanded in custody.

“All steps of intervention and control – which included community warning notices, visiting from police and words of advice, working with the ASB officers at North Kesteven District Council – were ignored by the suspects, who made it their mission to torment the victims.”

He added: “In almost 10 years of policing, I have never seen such persistent, relentless and unprovoked offending by a suspect.

“Linda Lu utilized her position as a registered solicitor in order to carry out an all-out war on the victims of this case. This case has involved hundreds of hours work by police, as well as multiple witnesses who came forward assisted in the case and ensuring justice prevailed.”