Residents living alongside a woman they describe as a “volcanic neighbour from hell” say they are furious after she avoided immediate imprisonment despite assaulting a woman and four police officers.
Anne Egglestone’s decade-long pattern of abuse has resulted in several prison sentences. She now has 19 previous convictions covering 74 offences.
Her record includes violent incidents involving neighbours and police, directing CCTV cameras towards people’s homes and making a stream of abusive calls to officers.
Frightened residents say they feel trapped in their own houses and are desperate to leave. However, they fear they would struggle to sell their properties, with some avoiding hanging out washing or putting their bins outside.
One resident, who asked not to be identified because of fears of reprisals, said: “We want to see her locked up. We’re living in fear.
“What the police and the courts have done is ineffective and we are suffering. If we reported every incident, we’d be calling the police twice a week.”
Egglestone’s latest arrest unfolded dramatically, with an officer warning that he was aiming a Taser at her before repeatedly ordering: “Step out of the house, now.”
A Taser-wielding police officer pulls Anne Egglestone, 63, from her house after she assaulted a neighbour
As the 63-year-old approached the front door of her bungalow, the officer seized her wrist and pulled her outside before taking her to the ground. Two other officers then moved in to restrain her.
Egglestone can be heard crying out “Oh” as the officer first grabbed her, before appearing to scream.
The confrontation took place on August 16 on a leafy suburban street in Thorpe St Andrew, near Norwich. Four officers were assaulted during the incident, amid allegations that they were bitten and kicked.
Police intervened after a woman was assaulted and her mobile phone damaged during what residents had described as a quiet garden party held for an elderly person.
The woman, who also chose not to reveal her identity, told the Daily Mail: “She was making noises like a banshee. The police were called and then she went into her property.”
Egglestone was not held in custody and returned home within hours. Neighbours, many of whom have fitted CCTV cameras after fearing attacks, were therefore given little relief.
At Norwich Crown Court last week, Egglestone admitted four charges of assaulting a constable, two breaches of a Community Protection Notice, obstructing a constable, common assault and criminal damage.
Egglestone has been jailed several times for anti-social behaviour
The judge handed down an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, alongside a three-year Criminal Behaviour Order. The order prohibits Egglestone from engaging in conduct that causes a nuisance, disturbance or annoyance.
She was also ordered to pay compensation and additional costs totalling almost £700.
Residents said they fear her “dangerous” conduct will worsen. One described her as “a neighbour from hell” and added: “She’s a volcano.”
Another resident said: “She’s the reason we’ve put cameras up. The verbal and physical abuse is a massive problem and we’re fearful of doing anything in our own gardens.”
Egglestone’s known list of offences dates back a decade. In March 2017, she was fined and handed a 26-week prison sentence at Norwich Magistrates’ Court for four public order offences after she was abusive towards a neighbour and their builder.
She had also contacted the police control room making unnecessary, rude and obstructive calls to staff – breaching a CBO imposed in April 2016 for similar offences.
At the time, beat manager PC Sean Phillips said: ‘This result goes to show that the courts and the police treat this type of anti-social behaviour with the utmost seriousness.’
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Footage obtained by the Daily Mail shows the police officer pointing the Taser at Egglestone as he shouts: ‘Step out of the property, now.’
He then seizes her by the wrist as she moved towards the front door of her bungalow
Other officers rush forward to help restrain Egglestone as she is bundled to the ground
Egglestone appears to have been jailed again in October that year, receiving another 26-week custodial sentence and a two-year restraining order after she admitted criminal damage, public order offences and breaching her CBO.
Magistrates heard she had damaged a neighbour’s wooden fence with a hammer, was verbally aggressive towards the victim and attending officers and made unnecessary and rude calls to police.
The combative neighbour is next known to have been in trouble in April 2019, when she was charged with harassment after moving palm trees and disturbing neighbours by being loud and abusive.
She was also said to have made an offensive call to a domestic violence charity, Leeway, and breached her CBO by contacting police again.
In November 2019 she was jailed for two years at Norwich Crown Court after sending an offensive message to the same charity, breaching the CBO again by contacting police, and sending abusive messages. She also breached a suspended sentence order.
Prosecutor Eleanor Sheerin told the court neighbours had been left feeling anxious and ‘like prisoners in their own home’ after the defendant pointed a security camera into their home.
Judge Stephen Holt told Egglestone: ‘You have a long record of being extremely unpleasant to other people and a number of breaches of court orders. You are not a very nice piece of work.’
Egglestone arriving at court for a previous hearing
A 63-year-old female neighbour said after the hearing: ‘She’s created such a lot of tension and anxiety.
‘She was always verbally abusive – so much so that I didn’t like being out in the garden because she would look over the fence and stand watching.’
Another brush with the law came in 2023 when Egglestone admitted making ten abusive calls to police over ‘irrational’ fears that neighbours were trying to poison her dog by throwing grapes into her garden.
She was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence in March the following year.
Egglestone moved into the road in about 2015 and neighbours said problems appeared to have first flared up when a family over the road had building work done and she ‘took exception to their lorries and the noise, which was not excessive by any means’.
During a court appearance in 2023, her lawyer explained she ‘lives alone, having divorced ten years ago, and has two children – one in New Zealand and another she has no contact with’.
Sergeant Sam Barwick, from Norfolk Constabulary’s Operational Partnership Team, said after the latest court appearance: ‘We hope this CBO will act as a deterrent to Egglestone’s persistent anti-social behaviour.
‘This type of behaviour has a detrimental effect on those living around her and significantly impacts emergency service workers carrying out their duty.’
But a neighbour insisted: ‘We want her out of Spinney Close and out of our lives. She needs to be locked up.’
Another said: ‘She’s been screaming at elderly people, making children cry and shouting the most foul-mouthed abuse at people. It will continue until she is stopped.’
Egglestone became hostile when approached for a comment.