Court ‘has added to our abuse from hydrangea rage granny’, says victim

A man subjected to a tirade of racial insults by a grandmother in a “hydrangea rage” row today said he had been let down by the justice system.

Margaret Perry, 87, branded her Irish neighbour Brian Kelly a “menace” and told him he should go back to his own country during a 20-minute rant in Cheam, Surrey after she lost her temper when he trimmed her hydrangea plant.

Perry admitted harassment at an earlier hearing, and was yesterday sentenced by Croydon magistrates’ court to a six-month community order and ordered to pay £75 costs.

But Mr Kelly, 73, who has now installed CCTV outside his house, said: “My wife and I both feel the latest abuse we have suffered from Mrs Perry has been delivered by the Crown Prosecution Service and the bench.

"Living next to her has caused a permanent state of anxiety, wondering what she’s going to do next. We like living in the place, we like the people. Mrs Perry is the aberration.”