A FORMER clerk of Malvern Town Council has been found guilty of abusing and threatening a neighbour during a dispute.

Richard Chapman, denied harassing Helen Byrne, a fellow resident of Whitbourne Hall, in Whitbourne, near Worcester, or causing her alarm and distress when he shouted at her over a car that not been moved for more than three months.

Miss Byrne, who was clearing some boxes from her garage and told a fellow resident at the time, David Goodman, that she was trying to determine who the car belonged to, said Chapman became "apoplectic" and very red in the face despite being told to calm down several times.

Miss Byrne told Tim Talbot-Webb, prosecuting, that she was left "shaking like a leaf" after he shouted and swore at her.

"He was just really really angry," she said.

"He started to come towards me and started to become more and more agitated. He was shouting at me. He made himself very large. He was very aggressive. He did it about four or five times.

"It was like I had flicked a switch. I didn't know what he was talking about."

Despite knowing who the car belonged to, Chapman kept the information to himself and was interrupted by District Judge Cadbury when he said he had told Miss Byrne that the car belonged to a fellow resident's brother who was in prison.

"Why didn't you nip this whole thing in the bud by just saying that it belonged to so and so?"

After saying he did tell Miss Byrne that he knew who the car belonged to, District Judge Cadbury said: "I don't believe a word of that I'm afraid because that would have been the end of it wouldn't it?

"You have not given one bit of evidence to suggest that you told anybody that."

Chapman admitted that he did not get along with Miss Byrne but said he did not recall shouting and was only being sarcastic and flippant.

Asked by Edmund Middleton, defending, whether he had shouted in anybody's face, Chapman said: "No."

He said he did not shout, swear or threaten Miss Byrne but was frustrated and "fed up" at what he called a 'petty culture' of reporting at Whitbourne Hall, something he seemed to think Miss Byrne was spearheading.

"I was upset about yet another complaint going on," he said.

Jennifer Monaghan, another resident who was gardening nearby, said she heard incoherent shouting coming from the garages and walked over to see what was happening. She said Chapman also shouted at her.

Chapman admitted saying "here comes the Ayatollah" to Mrs Monaghan but she did not recall him saying that.

Chapman was arrested on suspicion of harassment last November.

A restraining order was also put in place stopping Chapman from going near Miss Byrne for two years.

District Judge Cadbury was convinced that Chapman's language and behaviour had passed the threshold for causing Miss Byrne distress and was ordered to pay a £955 fine which includes £625 costs and a £30 victim surcharge.