Logan pensioner Anoushka Arro wins legal battle against neighbour after attacks to her property
A Browns Plains pensioner, terrorised for months after attacks on her home, has won a court order preventing a neighbour approaching or photographing her property. VIDEO
A Logan pensioner has won a court order banning her neighbour from coming within metres of her property for two years after a court heard how she had endured a year of terrifying harassment, including $14,000 damage to her front fence.
Browns Plains woman Anoushka Arro, 68, who made headlines last month when she interrupted a televised press conference with federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers to tell of her ordeal, described a string of attacks in court last week.
She told Beenleigh Magistrates Court her neighbour, Blake Jesse Hewitt, 20, who lives across the road, had subjected her to ongoing intimidation and property damage including ramming her security gate with a golf cart, and ripping out her pedestrian gate and dragging it down the street in the middle of the night.
Dirt bikes and a black Nissan Dual Cab churned up her nature strip in May and June, followed by a golf cart repeatedly reversing into her security gate in July before a car bumper bar was thrown over her fence in the early hours of the morning.
“This event put great fear into me as this was targeted,” Ms Arro said in her affidavit.
“They lined up the rear of the cart with my Hercules-style security gate, similar to those at police stations and schools, and rammed the gate with force, pushing one end three metres up the driveway.”
In August, a white ute repeatedly rammed her gate, leaving tyre marks and smoke from the impact.
In September, eggs were thrown at her walls, windows, and driveway.
Days later, a car pulled up and a passenger got out, chained her gate to the car before ripping it out and dragging it along the road late at night.
Police attended immediately.
“I live in constant fear of my life and cannot leave my own house for fear,” Ms Arro said.
“I now live under constant surveillance and have had to increase my cameras and security systems.
“I have also had excellent support from the Browns Plains police who now regularly patrol this street.
“I have had many interactions with Public Housing over their tenants, in particular Blake.”
Beenleigh Magistrate Gary Finger granted the peace and good behaviour order, barring Hewitt from coming within 10m of Ms Arro or her property, and from taking photographs of her or her home.
Ms Arro has a second matter before Beenleigh Magistrates Court in December.
