A solicitor and her mother have each been jailed for five and a half years after a campaign of harassment launched against their neighbours.
Linda Lu, 31, and her mother Susan Chen, were found guilty of stalking involving serious alarm or distress following a six-week trial at Lincoln Crown Court in October.
They used derogatory language peppered with slurs, played loud and taunting music and subjected their neighbours, a couple with two children, to loud banging and metallic noises. The dispute started in July 2023 after a row about a hedge but escalated quickly.
On sentencing, Judge James House KC said that the pair had begun a ‘persistent, calculated and appalling series of behaviours designed to cause the victims the maximum distress possible’, adding that it was ‘one of the most serious cases of this kind that this court has had to deal with’.
The harassment took place 24 hours a day, seven days a week over a three-month period until Lu and Chen were arrested and put in custody. Before they were charged, the mother and daughter were issued with community protection notices, warning letters, and arrested on several occasions.
Lu, a non-practising solicitor who qualified in 2022, also served multiple entirely vexatious civil letters of claim to the victims as part of their stalking activities.
PC Jordan Bathie-Drexler from Lincolnshire Constabulary's local neighbourhood policing team said this went way beyond a neighbour dispute, adding: ‘In almost 10 years of policing, I have never seen such persistent, relentless and unprovoked offending by a suspect.
‘Linda Lu utilised her position as a registered solicitor in order to carry out an all-out war on the victims of this case. This case has involved hundreds of hours work by police, as well as multiple witnesses who came forward assisted in the case and ensuring justice prevailed.’
Both women were issued with a restraining order without limited time, which has multiple prohibitions, including ones contacting the victims and their family, and other witnesses, or from contacting their employers. They must also not attend any location those people may be and cannot enter the village of Bassingham.
A separate restraining order was also issued not to contact either police officer involved in the case directly or indirectly.
