Jailed at 81, the grandma who broke her Asbo

Described by a judge as "the original neighbour from hell", Dorothy Evans tormented Angela and Roberto Casa for ten years.

She took a sledge hammer to the wall dividing their houses and told the couple's 13-year-old daughter she was "a witch and would cast a spell on her family and kill her pet dog".

She also showed her bottom to Mrs Casa's mother and accused Mrs Casa of being a prostitute.

Evans was due to be sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on Monday after being convicted of harassment and six breaches of an antisocial behaviour order.

But she did not attend that hearing, leading Judge Roderick Denyer QC to threaten to issue a warrant for her arrest.

When she turned up on Monday, he jailed her for six months and said: "Despite your age and despite your infirmities, you have deliberately, for a period going on for ten years, made life a misery for neighbours.

"The consequences must now be brought home to you.

"Because of your age the sentence is much, much shorter than I would give someone younger than you. Your neighbours are thoroughly decent people. But you made their lives a misery."

The court heard that Evans, from Abergavenny in South Wales, had a string of previous convictions over neighbourhood disputes between 1999 and 2005.

She was given an Asbo in May 2005 prohibiting her from causing alarm, harassment or distress to anyone in Gwent. At her trial in February, a jury heard how she breached the Asbo by shouting abuse and telling Mr Casa to "go back to Italy".

She drew a white chalk mark around Mrs Casa's car while she was sitting in it and swore at her through the car window before hitting her with her stick.

Evans's barrister, David Webster, told the court that the source of the dispute was flooding at her home which was kept under control by pumping.

This prevented her from selling up, he said, and she blamed this on whoever was living next door.

The widow, who was a GI war bride, looked shaken as she was lifted to her feet and used two walking sticks to be led to the cells.

Her daughter, Barbara Thomas, who lives with her, ran up to the dock in tears as her mother was led away.

Mrs Casa said after the verdict: "I just hope she never speaks to me again.

"I just want to be able to get up in the morning and go out into my garden without having to worry about abuse."

Evans, who has lived at her home for 54 years, was found guilty by a jury in March 2001 of breaching a restraining order during a long-running dispute with her neighbours.

Judge David Morris later gave her a suspended prison sentence and told her: '"ou are a manipulative and vindictive old woman who clearly harassed your neighbours. You are the original neighbour from hell."