Neighbour violently attacked in row about fence leaving her with broken ribs | UK News

A pensioner was left with a fractured eye socket and broken collarbone and ribs after a neighbourly dispute over a fence and ivy bush came to blows.

Brian Saunders left Wendy Douglas seriously injured after Wendy started trimming a bush she claims had grown over into her garden in 2021.

He shouted at her before demanding the cuttings from the plant – and then during a conversation about putting up a new fence, he attacked her.

Wendy was 68 at the time of the attack. She’d worked as a shop assistant in Fenwicks before she retired and then became a volunteer at the Freeman Hospital.

Judge Sarah Mallett, during sentencing, said Saunders ‘saw red’ when Wendy didn’t want to speak with him about the dispute.

Saunders didn’t even live there – his parents were Wendy’s next door neighbours but he got involved in the conflict and it turned physical.

He punched her repeatedly and knelt on her chest while strangling her – leaving Wendy scared for her life.

Wendy, now 70, said: ‘It was just an Ivy hedge that was growing on our wood fence.

‘It just started with a polite conversation. I just started asking. I didn’t expect anything to come of that.

‘It was just a bit of a disagreement. Then we just stopped speaking because it was getting nowhere.

‘It was totally out of the blue. I have never spoken to him before.

‘I thought it would be a bit of verbal. I would never have imagined it would turn to violence.

‘I’m still friends with the neighbours from the first house I have ever lived in from the 70s. I have never had bad neighbours before.’

Saunders, 52, of Melness Road, Hazlerigg, has now been jailed for three years and nine months after a jury found him guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The court heard how Saunders subjected Wendy to a ‘vicious and sustained attack’ and then ‘walked off, leaving her badly injured and covered in blood’.

During sentencing at Newcastle crown court, Judge Mallett said: ‘At about 12.30pm on June 12, 2021, following a dispute between your father and Wendy Douglas about plants growing on the border between the two gardens, you approached Wendy Douglas to discuss the matter.

‘She did not want to engage in any discussion with you – and you saw red.

‘You ran at her and knocked her out of her chair with a punch. You knelt on her chest and, with both hands around her neck, you pinned her there and then punched her to the face again.

‘She said, “I have got you now”‘ and then you continued to punch her and then shouted, “I’m sick of this,” and told her to, “get it sorted”.

‘There were neighbours who heard screaming.

‘Ms Douglas said at the time she thought she was going to die from strangulation. She was a 68-year-old female on her own at home.’

Saunders was also handed a 10-year restraining order stopping him from contacting Wendy – although he’ll still be allowed to visit his parents at home when he’s released from prison.

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