Neighbour tormented Cheshire couple for years - including posting wee through letterbox

Neighbour from hell Peter Johnson is back behind bars after he threatened to kill the crown court judge who sent him to prison in the first place.

The 62-year-old was jailed in 2019 by Judge Steven Everett after carrying out a campaign of harassment against people in his home town of Alsager.

He was so incensed at being locked up that he decided to target Judge Everett by posting 'repugnant' letters including a mocked up obituary and false claims he was sexual deviant, a bigot and a Nazi. CheshireLive spoke to some of the neighbours whose lives he made a misery.

Pat and Alan Dale had been living in Ivy Lane, Alsager, for 25 years when they heard the news that their neighbour and tormentor had been jailed. The couple shared their harrowing experience of living next to Peter Johnson who made their lives a misery for two years, even going as far as posting urine through their letterbox.

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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.

Speaking to StokeonTrentLive in 2019, 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."

Peter Johnson
Peter Johnson -Credit:Cheshire Police/SWNS

The couple received 20 letters from Johnson - and one particularly sticks in their memory. Pat spoke out, saying: "He sent a letter using text 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."

Once, armed police swooped when Johnson brought a metal bar from his house into the street.

Pat's husband, Alan, 73, 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."

Johnson was handed a 28-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to five counts of stalking. 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.

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."

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