Wealthy pensioners living on a leafy ‘millionaires’ row’ in Hampshire are locked in a nine-year feud featuring allegations of assault, harassment and even gunfire across a quiet country lane.
The peace of Farther Common, a secluded private enclave where houses sell for more than £1million, has been shattered by a bitter dispute between 84-year-old forestry tycoon Yvonne Hayes and her neighbours, retired couple Peter and Evelyn Overton, aged 76 and 74, and 64-year-old Ian Brodrick.
Once friends and business associates, the neighbours have descended into all-out war over rights to a woodland track with claims of ‘dog faeces throwing’, spitting, and violent assaults.
Mrs Hayes, who has lived at her home Winterbourne for 65 years, has accused Mr Overton of shoving her to the ground, kicking her in the groin, and firing a shotgun over her garden in a campaign that has left her ‘a prisoner in her own home’.
Although barrister, Nicholas Leviseur, said: ‘There isn’t any extrinsic evidence that these men have been throwing dog faeces or firing at innocent widows.’
She told the High Court that the retired engineer, who has serious mobility issues following a stroke, ‘pushed me from behind, causing me to fall onto my left side’ and then ‘kicked me in the groin area’ during an alleged attack on New Year’s Eve last year.
In another alleged assault, she claimed he ‘swung his arm to strike me across the back of the head’ so hard her glasses were flung into a hedge and only found two days later.
Mrs Hayes also accused her neighbour, Mr Brodrick, of knocking her down and kicking her during a 2018 confrontation, though he was acquitted of assault by magistrates.
Ultimately the judge heard how the feud had become ‘a tragedy’ between neighbours who ‘detest each other to the greatest possible degree’.
The peace of Farther Common, a secluded private enclave where houses sell for more than £1million, has been shattered by a bitter dispute between 84-year-old forestry tycoon Yvonne Hayes (pictured) and her neighbours
Picture shows the home of Evelyn and Peter Overton in Farther Common
In documents handed to the judge, Mrs Hayes describes the December 2024 attack she claims Mr Overton subjected her to, saying: ‘He pushed me from behind, and caused me to fall onto my left side. He further assaulted me by kicking me in the groin area.’
Of the alleged March 2023 attack by Mr Overton, she adds: ‘He swung out his arm to forcefully strike me across the back of my head causing me to fall to the ground and my glasses to be knocked off my face.
‘I fell with such force that I fell to my knees, holding out my hands to support myself and sprained my wrists in doing so. I later had to have brain scans at the hospital as well. My glasses were flung so far that they were found two days later in the undergrowth/hedge.’
Lawyers for Mrs Hayes said she and her company, Hayes Forestry Ltd, had been subjected to ‘a campaign of terror’ involving hundreds of hostile emails and ‘baseless allegations’, including that she was shooting wildlife.
Her barrister, Roderick Moore, told the court: ‘Mrs Hayes is a cowed and miserable 84-year-old widow living in fear.’
But the accused neighbours have furiously denied the claims, describing Mrs Hayes as ‘a vindictive, manipulative liar’ who has made up the allegations as part of a long-running property row.
Mr Overton, described by his lawyer as ‘a crippled 76-year-old’ who walks slowly with a stick, insists he is physically incapable of the alleged assaults.
Ian Brodrick, 64, who Mrs Hayes accused of knocking her down and kicking her during a 2018 confrontation
Evelyn Overton, 74, her husband has been accused of shoving Mrs Hayes to the ground, kicking her in the groin, and firing a shotgun over her garden
Despite the denials, Mr Justice Jay ruled there was a ‘serious issue to be tried’ and granted an interim injunction against Mr Overton under the Protection from Harassment Act, though he refused to grant one against Mr Brodrick.
The judge said there was ‘convincing evidence’ that Mr Overton had physically assaulted and harassed Mrs Hayes and could have discharged his shotgun ‘to cause alarm’.
He added: ‘It is possible to infer that Mr Overton might well have fired the gun to make some sort of point, intending Mrs Hayes to be alarmed.’
The judge urged the warring pensioners to resolve their dispute out of court, warning: ‘I read cases in the newspapers all the time in which people spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on boundary disputes and it ends in misery for at least one party and often for both.’
The full boundary dispute is due to go to trial next year.