The woman aggravated neighbours after playing Ed Sheeran's Shape of You on repeat for half an hour. Photo / AP
The woman aggravated neighbours after playing Ed Sheeran's Shape of You on repeat for half an hour. Photo / AP
A mother-of-three has been jailed for driving her neighbours to breaking point after playing an Ed Sheeran song on loop at high volume.
Sonia Bryce drew numerous complaints for playing loud music and having regular parties at her rented home in Willenhall, Walsall, with visitors arriving at all hours, accordingto the Daily Mail.
Clare Tidmarsh, a mother-of-five who lived next-door, endured months of stress from the neighbour from hell, who has already been jailed once for creating a nuisance.
The "straw that broke the camel's back" was when she played Ed Sheeran's Shape of You on loop for half an hour, at which point she complained, the court heard.
Miss Bryce claimed she did not like the song while denying the nuisance, although Mrs Tidmarsh had kept a detailed log of disturbances.
Jailing her for eight weeks, Judge Philip Gregory said there was "a wholly unacceptable level of disturbance through loud noise involving music, shouting, swearing and banging - time and time again - emanating from Miss Bryce's home."
Miss Bryce's landlords, Walsall Housing Group Ltd, had previously secured a court order barring her from creating a nuisance or annoyance.
But she had been repeatedly arrested for breaching that injunction and was handed a six-week jail term last December.
She was released in February, but continued the behaviour and was arrested again after a complaint from Mrs Tidmarsh, who lives with her husband and children.
Mrs Tidmarsh said her life had been plagued by "numerous comings and goings at her neighbour's property" - with continuous "loud music, shouting and swearing."
She had kept a detailed "diary of events" cataloguing the racket from her next door neighbour's home, said the judge.
She also installed CCTV "in an attempt to control the behaviour of Miss Bryce".
The judge said Miss Bryce had "displayed ungovernable animosity" to her neighbour and had committed four further breaches of the injunction in February.
The offending Ed Sheeran track was played without cease for about half an hour before Miss Bryce finally left in a cab.
She denied playing the music, insisting that she's not a fan of Ed Sheeran.
The judge, however, rejected her evidence. "I am satisfied...that this occurred, and in behaving in that way Miss Bryce breached the order," he said.
Mrs Tidmarsh told the judge she "could no longer cope living next door to Miss Bryce and her family and her continuous stream of visitors".
She felt driven to take the drastic step of quitting her semi-detached home and renting it out to get away from her neighbour.
Miss Bryce accused Mrs Tidmarsh of "goading" her and claimed she was only moving out because she needed a bigger home for her family.
But the judge said the Tidmarsh family were "perfectly decent and respectable people" who had the misfortune to live next door to Miss Bryce.
Pleading not to be jailed, Miss Bryce said: "I can't be taken away from my kids' care."
But, after describing her as "over-emotional", the judge told her: "You can and you will be."
Jailing her for eight weeks, he added: "You must learn that you should behave as a reasonable and responsible adult, and not make life for your neighbours the misery that you have."
Condemning the "contempt" she had shown for the court order, he concluded: "You have displayed nothing but violent animosity towards your neighbour, and I am quite convinced that you do not care.
"Everybody is entitled to live in a degree of peace and quiet with the usual give and take of society, but you do not behave like a civilised person, and you have got to learn that you will."
