Ex-teacher turned model, 60, harassed neighbour after being evicted from beach hut
A former teacher mounted a campaign of harassment against her neighbour as “revenge” after she was evicted from her beach hut over playing loud music, a court has heard.
Michele Spicer, 60, had paid £15,000 for her beach hut in Goring-by-Sea, in West Sussex, following her divorce in 2020, a place she termed her “mermaid haven”, but she was evicted in 2021.
Rows escalated after her neighbour accused her of playing loud music on her Mercedes radio near the huts.
Spicer became convinced that one neighbour was plotting to evict her, a court heard. When the hut was taken away from her by the council, she launched a campaign of “revenge” against the neighbour which became so severe that the victim was forced to leave town and even change her job.
London’s High Court heard that her behaviour led to an anti-harassment injunction but that Spicer “continued to harass and intimidate” the former neighbour.
Judge Richard Pearce found her in contempt of court for breaching the injunction and gave Spicer a 24-week jail sentence suspended for two years, as well as having to pay her former neighbour’s legal costs, estimated at £53,000.
The woman victim, who cannot be named after being granted anonymity by the judge, made 30 complaints to the police leading to two community protection orders being issued to Spicer, yet this appeared to have “no effect” the court heard last week.
In July 2022, the neighbour felt she had “no choice but to seek an injunction to curb Ms Spicer’s harassment of her”, which barred the former teacher from the waterfront near her former hut as well as contacting her victim or “harassing or stalking her”.
Despite the injunction, she “continued to harass and intimidate” the woman, the court heard, and she was charged with contempt of court.
The court heard that Spicer had shown “little remorse” for the victim and seemed to “be motivated by a wish to punish the claimant and to put pressure on her, and to make her life difficult – even unbearable – because she did the unthinkable and complained about her anti-social behaviour”.
The victim was forced to uproot her life and change jobs as a result of the harassment.
Ruling, Judge Pearce said that despite being singled out by Spicer as a key figure in lodging complaints to the council, the victim had acted “entirely appropriately in seeking to challenge such anti-social behaviour”.
The loss of her “pride and joy” beach hut had a devastating impact on Spicer, he added, prompting the revenge campaign which ultimately forced her victim to sell her house and even adopt a disguise while going shopping.
In earlier interviews, Spicer claimed she had sparked her neighbours’ resentment due to her “glamorous” looks and her Mercedes sports car. She claimed she had carried out modelling work in Spain.
“I didn’t do anything wrong – but because I model and I have a nice car, they have a certain impression of me,” she said.
