A North London woman who spent two decades as the downstairs neighbor of the couple who owned her building was convicted last month of destroying their wisteria and hitting one of them with a crutch. The judge issued a five-year restraining order against her in a move to protect the couple. The woman ended up breaching it before she had even finished walking out of the courtroom.
Atidel Boutara Cook was found guilty of criminal damage and assault following a December 17 incident at a Victorian property in Stanhope Gardens, North London. The victims were tenants Pei Wong and her husband Louis Scott, both architects. They had been Cook’s neighbors for 20 years.
According to trial testimony, Scott came home from work that evening to find Cook outside the building cutting down their wisteria and uprooting other plants. When he confronted her, she swore at him. When Wong began recording with her phone, the situation got worse. Cook began screaming and flailing her arms, snatching Wong’s phone. She struck Wong once on the forehead and twice on the chest with her crutch.
District Judge Denis Brennan imposed a five-year restraining order, a £500 compensation order against Cook, and a 12-month community order. As Cook left the courtroom, she addressed the couple in the public gallery and made a comment that the judge said amounted to an immediate breach of the order he had just put in place.
The Trial and the Sentence
The hearing was held at Highbury Magistrates’ Court before District Judge Denis Brennan, with the prosecution handled by a barrister. Cook, who represented herself, was convicted of criminal damage and assault. Her sentence included a five-year restraining order banning any direct or indirect contact with Wong, Scott, or their children, with limited exceptions for building matters or communications routed through a solicitor. She was also hit with a £500 compensation order and a 12-month community order requiring 15 rehabilitation activity days.
Judge Brennan told Cook from the bench that her behavior before, on, and since December 17 had made the couple’s lives (and, by his reading) and their children’s lives miserable. He asked whether she understood the penalty. She said yes, then looked up to the gallery where Wong and Scott were sitting, blew them a kiss, and asked, “Happy?”
Additional Harassment
On her way out, she told them she would pay the £500 in one go so they could go on holiday. Judge Brennan immediately said the comment was a breach of the restraining order he had just imposed and indicated that a decision on referring the matter to police would follow.
In her victim impact statement, Wong told the court that the harassment had continued since the December attack, including persistent banging at night that disrupted her sleep. She described feeling trapped, intimidated, anxious, and emotionally drained in her own home. The couple has since installed CCTV cameras at the property to keep an eye out for Cook.