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.
