NHS worker cleared of abuse charge towards neighbour

AN NHS worker accused of calling her next-door neighbour an English b*****d and telling her Alsatian to burst her kid's football was cleared of the allegations.
By The Newsroom
Published 30th Apr 2016, 12:21 BST
Updated 30th Apr 2016, 13:27 BST

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The woman was found not guilty at Falkirk Sherrif CourtThe woman was found not guilty at Falkirk Sherrif Court
The woman was found not guilty at Falkirk Sherrif Court

Diane Weddell, 42, a health service support worker and a volunteer First Responder, walked free from Falkirk Sheriff Court after she was found not guilty of using racist, threatening and abusive behaviour towards library assistant Deborah Scott, 48, who lives next door to Diane in Denny, Stirlingshire.

Ms Scott, 48, claimed trouble flared in September last year when she had been painting her decking while her own eight-year-old son and her grown-up daughter’s six- and seven-year-old sons were kicking a football around in her back garden.

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She said it went over the fence and the children went to fetch the ball, and then she heard the back door of Ms Weddell’s house opening.

She claimed Ms Weddell let her dog out and told the German Shepherd, known as CJ: “Can you go and burst the wee b******’s ball.”

Ms Scott insisted: “I heard it quite clearly”.

She said her partner, John Jones, 51, who had come just home from work, “went round to try and reason with her”.

But, she claimed, Diane shouted: “I’ve flattened bigger men than you before.”

She said: “Then Diane came over and said I was a f*****g English b*****d and I should f*** off back home.

“I’ve been here 38 years and nobody’s ever spoken to me like that before. I was very angry.”

Ms Scott, who said her grandmother was Scottish, was accused by defence agent Gordon Addison of making up the racist allegation to get Ms Weddell into trouble.

She denied it but she admitted it had been Ms Weddell, not her, who had called the police - saying Mr Jones had threatened to “put her six foot under and kick her up and down the street”.

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She said that all she had said about the dog and the ball coming over the fence was, “look, if happens when she’s in the garden, she will burst it, because she’s ball daft.”

She insisted that CJ was “a big softie”, who often played football with kids in the local park.

Sheriff Linda Smith found Ms Weddell, who had denied the offence, not guilty.

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