Spade attack pensioner is jailed

Terminally ill June Iddon was led away from the dock by two burly security guards and down to the cells still shouting "I'm innocent" as she was jailed at Preston Crown Court.

Iddon had been convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm on her neighbour, Jeffrey Grundy, 62, after hitting him with a spade in November last year.

The neighbours, of Hesketh Lane, Tarleton, Lancashire, had had a long-running dispute over a strip of land separating the two properties.

Passing sentence recorder Lesley Anderson QC said: "Notwithstanding your age and physical frailty a message needs to be sent to you that your behaviour cannot be acceptable."

The judge told Iddon she had ignored a civil court ruling in favour of Mr Grundy over the boundary dispute.

Jailing Iddon for 24 weeks, half of which she will serve in jail, she added: "I make the order with significant regret, to send a woman like you to prison is a significant waste of public resources. But in my judgment you need a sustained period in which to reflect on your behaviour."

She was convicted last month following a three day trial at Preston, during which the jury heard the neighbours had a four-year dispute about the strip of land between them. Mr Grundy, who runs an electrical business, took out a civil claim, disputed by Iddon, but the court ruled in his favour.

On November 14 last year Mr Grundy was with a builder, David Broadley, looking at the land and where to position a fence in accordance with the court ruling. Iddon was in her garden with the spade and became "abusive and aggressive".

Despite being "built like a sparrow" and suffering terminal cancer, she used the spade as a weapon, "like an axeman" bringing it over her head to strike her neighbour. He managed to block the weapon but the blow broke his right arm. It was in plaster for 14 weeks.