‘Neighbour from hell’ who waged 15-year vendetta on couple – spying on them, throwing rotting dead moles over the garden fence and leaving her noisy lawnmower on during their wine and tapas party

When Corrine Rotherham and husband Peter bought their dream £675,000 bungalow in the sleepy village of Urchfont in 2011, they were absolutely delighted with the purchase.

Set in the Wiltshire countryside and winner of the Best Kept Village award two years in a row, where properties routinely sell for up to £1.7 million, the film lived up to all the couple’s expectations.

The 61-year-old IT worker, a 60-year-old semi-retired auditor and partner tree surgeon, had long been seeking a quiet life, and their new home appeared to be the answer to his prayers.

They enthusiastically settled in a property on a private road, next door to a single woman who had been living on the street for nearly 20 years and appeared to be extremely nice.

But fast forward to today, the Rotherhams are left on the verge of leaving their forever home; which proved to be a far cry from the rural idyll they had hoped for.

Instead, their time at Urchfont became a ‘living nightmare’ marked by endless arguments with the pensioner next door who turned out to be ‘the neighbor from hell’.

Over the years, Zoi Hayes, 68, spied on the couple through a hole she cut in the fence, attacked the wheelie bin outside their bedroom window at 5.45am and even dumped five rotting mole corpses into their garden.

His actions eventually led to her obtaining a restraining order preventing him from contacting the Rotherhams for five years; but despite the decision, the harassment continued.

In his latest run-in with the law, the duo’s nemesis is accused of violating order by deliberately disrupting a wine-and-tapas get-together his neighbors were preparing for their friends by leaving his noisy lawnmower running in his garden on a quiet summer evening.

The Rotherhams fell victim to a campaign of harassment in which Mrs Hayes spied on them, banging wheelie bins outside their bedroom window at 5.45am.

Mrs Rotherham, 60, and her IT worker with her tree surgeon husband, 61, moved to Urchfont, which won the Best Kept Village award two years in a row, in search of a quiet lifestyle.

But they were met with a restraining order that prevented Ms Hayes (right) from contacting the Rotherhams for five years as a result of his actions.

Hayes has now appeared at Salisbury Magistrates’ Court, where he admitted harassment in breach of a restraining order.

He now faces the possibility of being sentenced to prison next month.

Clearly distressed by her ordeal, Ms Rotherham invited the Daily Mail into her home this week to detail how the bitter 15-year row had damaged her mental health and her marriage.

In July last year, she and her husband hosted a dinner party in their garden for eight friends ‘for the first time in years’, long intimidated by their neighbour’s campaign of harassment.

But while they were embracing the summer sun, Hayes soon started the lawnmower and kept it running to deliberately ‘annoy and annoy’ the couple.

Ms Rotherham told the Daily Mail: ‘It was a lovely evening and it was so warm we were able to sit outside. Most of the people there knew him and knew what he was like.

‘We weren’t loud but we were just chatting. We had some drinks and some tapas food.

‘We were outside for about half an hour’ [the lawnmower] It started and I told everyone it would end soon.

‘I told him this was a breach of the restraining order and that I was going to call the police because I was so angry.’

Partygoers tried to continue chatting normally and playing light music for an hour, but Hayes kept running the noisy lawnmower.

Deciding that enough was enough, the exasperated guests marched into the next room to confront him, a hidden camera in hand.

Miss Rotherham said: ‘I told everyone I couldn’t have sex with him because I had to be whiter than white, so they walked around with a hidden camera.

‘They made me confess that she did this because she knew I was there and wanted to trap me.

‘He asked if I was going to go on about him and they all said I never mentioned him. He was so arrogant but eventually agreed to close it.’

The secret footage recorded by the guests would later be shared with the police and become part of a lawsuit filed against the neighbor for violating the restraining order.

This latest incident, before Hayes moved to Dorset earlier this year, marked a welcome conclusion to his persistent harassment of the couple.

Their neighbors had previously violated the restraining order in 2023; which resulted in him being spared prison and given a six-week prison sentence suspended for a year.

And the Rotherhams weren’t the only residents of the village he targeted; The pair once spotted him in another neighbor’s yard and violently took the pruning shears to the plants.

Ms Rotherham said: ‘He literally made our lives hell for 14 or 15 years. It was like living with a Peeping Tom who was absolutely obsessed with you.

‘He cut a hole in the fence so he could look in, so we had to make it bigger. We avoided it like the plague. It was pure hell. He was a compulsive liar and the neighbor from hell.

‘He moved in January and now we have lovely neighbors but he’s looking for excuses to return and won’t give them the delivery address.

‘We spent several thousand dollars to keep it out, including new fence panels. But it’s not just about money, it’s about time, energy and peace of mind. We were both so fed up with everything.’

The Rotherhams loved spending time in their garden, tending to their chickens and tending to their 17 apple trees.

But the couple soon found themselves frequently hiding inside and retreating to their bedrooms to avoid their neighbours.

Hayes would often shout curses over the fence between the properties, saying ‘you are a witch’ and ‘get under a rock and die’.

On another occasion he threw a jug of water at Mrs Rotherham; This saw her having to go so far as to call the police just to de-escalate the situation.

Mrs Rotherham said: ‘We love sitting in the garden but we had to move to the other side so he couldn’t see. We turned on our jukebox quietly so he couldn’t hear us talking.

‘On other occasions he threw dead moles over the fence onto our property. He would also wake up at 5.45am and start banging on the wheelie bin to wake us up.

‘We had to move into the bedroom to avoid him. “It was one thing after another.”

But even this level of abuse wasn’t enough to drive the Rotherhams away from their beloved home.

Ms Rotherham said: ‘We love living here and didn’t want him to be the reason we moved.

‘We do a lot of things in the village and it’s very out of character for everyone here.

‘But he would publicly abuse our friends and they would all question how we put up with it.

‘When the old owners moved out they said to us, ‘Never let that bloody woman get on that doorstep.’ But we couldn’t react to him. We had to be whiter than white.’

In court, prosecutor Cristiane Finlay said: ‘The brief facts of the case are that Miss Rotherham had been a neighbor of Miss Hayes for 15 years, with a long-standing history of neighborhood disputes between the parties.

‘He had a previous conviction on 23 February 2021 and had a restraining order until 22 February 2026 after damaging property.

‘The conditions were not to contact, disturb or disturb Corrine Rotherham or Peter Rotherham.

‘He violated the decision in 2023. You will see from his previous convictions that he received a six week suspended sentence for 12 months.

‘This is a deliberate violation at best, as what he effectively did was disturb the victim by leaving the lawnmower on while the victim, Miss Rotherham, was having a dinner party with six friends.

‘He hasn’t been able to do this for a few years but Miss Hayes started the lawnmower and left it there to annoy and annoy him.

‘One of the partygoers spoke to him about it and asked him to shut it down, which he did.’

In one incident, Ms. Hayes threw dead moles over the fence into her neighbor’s yard. He also deliberately left the lawnmower running to disrupt summer garden parties.

Ms Rotherham, whose home is on Ms Hayes’s former property, told the Daily Mail: ‘She literally made our lives hell for 14-15 years. ‘It was like living with a Peeping Tom who was absolutely obsessed with you.’

Defending, Raymond Tan said: ‘He no longer lives next door. He moved out in January and is living elsewhere.

‘I think the previous conviction came after he pleaded guilty to damaging a single sweet pea flower.

‘It’s clear they can’t move forward. ‘He had lived there for 20 years and they lived next to each other for 15 years.’

Originally from Andover, Hampshire, Hayes, who previously ran an Egyptian kitchen with her ex-army husband Arthur, 74, moved into her £1million house in Urchfont in 2003.

The village is known for its picturesque charm and won the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s ‘winner’ award for Best Kept Village in both 2024 and 2025.