A couple have recalled the years of fearful misery a neighbour put them through that saw them threatened with being stabbed and "buried" in their garden.
Peter Johnson, branded a 'neighbour from hell', was jailed once again after saying he would kill the crown court judge who sent him to prison in the first place. The 62-year-old was initially jailed in 2019 for 28 months by Judge Steven Everett after carrying out a prolonged campaign of harassment against people in his home town of Alsager.
He decided to take his anger at being jailed out on Judge Everett by posting 'repugnant' letters, including a mocked-up obituary and false claims he was sexual deviant, a bigot and a Nazi. Pat Dale told StokeonTrentLive in 2019 that living next to him was "horrendous".
She and her husband, Alan, had lived in Ivy Lane in Alsager for 25 years when they heard the news that their tormentor had been jailed. The couple shared their harrowing experience being neighbours with Peter Johnson, a man who disrupted their lives for two years and at one point even posted urine through their letterbox.
They recalled how relations soured in 2002 when neighbours testified against Johnson, who was then acquitted of assaulting a man on the street. The situation then deteriorated significantly. Pat, then aged 70, recounted: "He started with small things and then went quiet for a bit. Then in the past two years, he started to send funeral brochures through the letter box and urine through the letter box.
"He would make comments about burying us in our garden and he'd say horrible things to us when he saw us in the street. We even had a call from a funeral director who had been told by Johnson that my husband had died. He'd call us when we returned home to say 'oh you're back now are you' so we knew he was watching us. I can't begin to tell anyone how horrendous it has been."
The couple received 20 letters from Johnson - and one particularly sticks in their memory. Pat spoke out, saying: "He sent a letter using text to speak. It said I had the ugliest face in the world and that even my husband didn't like me because of my face.
"He called my husband a slob and a fat b****** and threatened to stick a knife up his bottom." Every time he saw me in the street he would call me the c-word and Alan a d*******." He even followed Alan to the train station, crept up behind him and whispered in his ear, 'you don't know who's behind you, and you shouldn't play with knives'.
"It's been horrendous, I've felt terrible, and I didn't dare go out on my own. I constantly felt scared and looked through the window, which I still do now." On one occasion, armed police swooped when Johnson brought a metal bar from his house into the street.
Alan added: "He kept smacking the bar in his hands saying 'come on then, if you want a go'." Pat, a great-grandmother, said: "In the six months leading up to his arrest, no one wanted to come over and everyone stayed away.
"We considered moving, but we thought why should we? We had the house the way we wanted it and we like it around here." A stern Pat concluded: "He's an evil person and I feel sorry for the next person he lives next to, because you don't know how he's going to react if they upset him."
Back in 2019, Johnson pleaded guilty to five counts of stalking and, along with his jail sentence, he was also banned from Alsager for life despite owning a house in the town. A restraining order, valid for life, was imposed on Johnson, barring him from contacting any of his five victims directly or indirectly.
Johnson, who was forced to move to Eaton in Cheshire, was jailed for 51 months at Birmingham Crown Court after been found guilty of four counts of threats to kill and six counts of malicious communications following the latest incidents.