Nuisance neighbour ‘pushed down steps’

Oct 4 2007 by Jule Wilson, The Journal

A NUISANCE neighbour has been left with “catastrophic brain injuries” following a disturbance which got out of hand, a court has heard.

Alison Conwell, 39, hit her head as she toppled down a flight of steps at the Newcastle block of flats where she lived on September 17, 2006, the city’s Crown Court heard yesterday.

Gary Philipson, 31, who also lived in one of the flats at Woodlands Court, Throckley, denies pushing his neighbour down the steps after an argument broke out.

Robert Woodcock, prosecuting, said that Miss Conwell suffered catastrophic brain injuries caused by the defendant’s deliberate and unlawful use of force. He said: “She had gone out drinking with her parents to a local pub and had spent much of that day in their company.

“When the pub had shut they returned to the block of flats and no sooner had they got into the communal entrance than their arrival was noticed by other residents due to the noise that they were making.

“Other residents had put their heads out of their doors and entreated them to keep it down as they were all too often disturbed by Alison Conwell coming home at night at that time.”

Mr Woodcock said that Miss Conwell was eventually by a number of residents of the top floor at the property, including Philipson. He said: “The defendant lost his temper with her, took hold of her and pushed her down some steps. The consequences of that were disastrous. It was necessary for Miss Conwell to have urgent surgery which sadly, she didn’t immediately get.”

Marie Bullock, who was also involved in the row before Miss Conwell’s fall, said: “I was the first to go to her assistance. She was quite obviously in a pretty poor way. She looked shocked and I thought she’d had a stroke. She was more incoherent than if she had been drunk and she was slurring, as if only able to speak through one half of her mouth.”

Miss Bullock told the jury that it was her that had initially confronted her neighbour when Philipson stepped in. She said: “She was aggressive, drunk, having made very personal remarks and I felt she was trying to threaten me.”

Miss Bullock said residents at the flats had become increasingly irritated by loud music and arguments from within the victim’s flat.

She said that as soon as Mr Philipson got involved Miss Conwell had “gone berserk”.

Her flatmate Melanie Van Derme, who had also witnessed the argument but not Miss Conwell’s fall, told the jury she had seen the defendant and the victim pushing and shoving one another in the moments leading up to the accident.

She said: “Both of them were quite agitated and Miss Conwell was edging closer to the stairs.”

Philipson, of Spencer Court, Mill Vale, Newcastle, denies grievous bodily harm. The trial continues.