Neighbours from hell are told to move out… and pay victims £10k

Two neighbours from hell face having to move out of their home after a sheriff banned them from their own street for waging a hate campaign.

David Aston, 56, and 58-year-old wife Jacqueline spent three years making malicious allegations against their neighbours, falsely accusing them of child abuse and drug dealing.

The pair tried to ruin the careers of those living around them, videoed them on a near-daily basis and made poisonous allegations to the police and local authority.

Sheriff John Cook banned them from the street in North Berwick, East Lothian.

He told the Astons, who bought their home in 2018 for £421,995, that their behaviour had caused their neighbours ‘very serious distress and significant psychological harm’.

They must not return to the street or contact their neighbours for 15 years and they must be out by January 31. 

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They must also pay four neighbours a total of £10,000 in compensation.

Victims told the trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court that their ordeal had been a ‘living hell’.

Mrs Aston reported Catriona Henderson to the General Teaching Council for Scotland in a bid to wreck her career. 

Former nurse Mrs Aston claimed that Ms Henderson used drugs including laughing gas and crystal meth and that she neglected children. 

Her partner Stuart McMorris was also targeted.

The Astons installed three security cameras to point at the couple’s property. 

They confronted them about delivery drivers bringing goods to their home, shouted at the drivers and photographed the vans.

False reports were made by the Astons to a mortgage company and East Lothian Council, claiming the pair were running a business from home and engaged in fraud.

Neighbour Marie Bain, 67, said they made her life ‘a misery’ as she was recorded on an ‘almost daily basis’. Husband Robert, 64, described the ‘constant monitoring’ as ‘stalking’.

The engineer said: ‘It has been horrendous. We moved to North Berwick to our dream home to retire to, but the dream has turned to a nightmare.’

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The Astons said the neighbours ‘did not like us’ and made up the allegations to make them move away. 

They were found guilty of engaging in a course of conduct which caused three sets of neighbours fear and alarm between October 2018 and October 2021.

At their sentencing yesterday, Nicola Haston, defending Mrs Aston, said her client’s care home employers had sacked her after becoming aware of her conviction. 

The lawyer said: ‘Mrs Aston has reflected what was said at the trial and she now accepts that perhaps her behaviour was concerning for her neighbours.’

Mrs Aston was also found guilty of assaulting Marie Bain by striking her with a bin in January 2023 and breaching bail conditions.

She must carry out 300 hours of unpaid work and pay £8,000 to Ms Henderson, Mr McMorris and the Bains.

Her husband was placed under supervision for three years, and must pay Ms Henderson and Mr McMorris £2,000. 

He was also tagged and must not go out at night for eight months.

Mark Harrower, for Mr Aston, said his client had suffered a severe brain injury and a stroke in a car crash ten years ago, leaving him with a ‘lifelong and permanent’ impairment.

The 15-year non-harassment orders ban them from contacting six neighbours and from being in the street after January 31.

Mr Aston previously wrote and published a book called 'A Stroke of Luck', which followed a character called David who terrorised his local community with magical powers following a stroke by making 'bad things happen to people who were behaving badly.' 

Aston wrote the book after a motorway crash a decade ago left him suffering serious injuries including brain trauma and a stroke.