Noise 'victim' sent hate mail to himself

A MAN who claimed he had been the victim of a terror campaign from a noisy neighbour has been fined for wasting police time after he sent hate mail to himself.

Mark Jefferson, 51, said he and 42-year-old partner Diane Stratford were being bombarded with loud music and slamming of doors from next door – making their lives a misery for six months.

They called police eight times and showed them countless vicious letters apparently sent from the neighbours threatening them.

But after the council installed recording equipment in their home in Tinshill, Leeds, officials found the music was coming from the couple’s own living room.

Further investigations revealed the handwriting on the letters matched that which Jefferson used when he scrawled a list of the noise problems in a diary .

Now, the former motor engineer has been given an 80 penalty notice for wasting police time.

He said the offence was “totally out of character” – and claimed that the neighbours had quietened down because they knew recording devices had been installed.

He added: “For some reason when they installed the monitor it went dead quiet. I asked them to extend the monitoring period, but they refused.

“Sending the mail was out of character. We do not normally do things like that. We are not bad people. We have been dealt with by the police and received the penalty notice which we have paid.”

Inspector Simon Jessup said: “False reports waste a significant amount of time that could be better spent by police officers and council officials in meeting the needs of people with genuine complaints.

“We hope that highlighting this case will serve as a deterrent to others who think they can get away with wasting our time.”