A NOISY neighbour who made life a misery for a woman by playing loud music at 4am threatened her when she reported him.

A Carlisle court heard how Catherine Kidd got so fed up with the noise blasting up from the ground-floor flat below her home in Blackwell Road, Currock, that she temporarily moved out.

But man responsible – 38-year-old Brian Hayes, who ignored her pleas to turn it down – refused to back down quietly. First he attacked the car of the relative who arrived to help Miss Kidd move out.

Then, after he was reported to the police, he threatened his neighbour, suggesting she was mentally ill and telling her he would “shoot her down in flames” when the case came to court.

In court, Hayes admitted criminal damage and witness intimidation.

Prosecutor John Moran told the court: “Miss Kidd lives in the flat above this defendant and there has been issues between them.

“Miss Kidd says the defendant plays music very loudly throughout the night, and that is what he was doing at 4am on June 4.”

When Miss Kidd asked him to turn down the music they ended up having a row and Miss Kidd decided to leave to stay with a relative.

“She came back in the evening at 9.30pm and he was still playing music loudly,” said Mr Moran.

“They had another altercation and Mr Hayes went towards a vehicle owned by the victim's uncle.”

Hayes used a small pen-knife to cut one of the car's tyres.

Describing the later witness intimidation offence, Mr Moran said Miss Kidd had been outside her flat when Hayes spotted her and leant out of his window, asking her if she was due in court to give evidence against him.

When she refused to discuss it, he called her various insulting names, suggested she should be in a psychiatric unit, and then made the comment about shooting her down in flames in the courtroom.

When he was interviewed by the police, Hayes said he played his music loud in retaliation because Miss Kidd had been “stomping around” upstairs. As for the witness intimidation, he said he had been drunk.

Margaret Payne, for Hayes, said: “He says his neighbour upstairs [Miss Kidd] was making an undue amount of noise, stomping around and slamming doors. He said he tired to deal with it politely, putting a note through the letter box.

“There was no threat. “He tried to speak to her but the noise continued. He accepts he played loud music to try to 'pay her back.'

The police asked him to turn it down and he did.”

Mrs Payne said the criminal damage happened after Miss Kidd's uncle arrived and called Hayes 'sonny boy,' being provocative.

Hayes' comments to Miss Kidd had not been intended as a threat, he said. “He was referring to the verbal joust in court that he had in mind,” said Mrs Payne.

District Judge Gerald Chalk imposed an 80 day jail sentence, suspended for a year, with 80 hours of unpaid work.

He told Hayes: “You jumped in with both feet, not only causing deliberate damage to property but you also abused a potential witness in the case in a manner which she would have felt was threatening.

“If there are any further incidents towards her you will go to prison. You can't afford to breach this order because you will be off to Durham if you do.”