A Portslade man has been banned from tweeting about a Sussex Police officer he has been in a years-long feud with.
Richard Fairbank sent 36 tweets over four months complaining about his neighbour PC Martin Waltham, who he says has made false allegations about him.
On Monday, Brighton and Hove Magistrates Court granted Sussex Police a stalking protection order which prevents Fairbank from publishing anything about PC Waltham or making vexatious complaints about him for three years.
However, district judge Tessa Szagun amended the proposed order to take out clauses preventing him from entering an exclusion area, surveilling PC Waltham or going to the same places as him as she hadn’t been shown evidence he had done that.
Ms Szagun said: “In my judgement, the persistent nature of these tweets and repetition of the comments alongside references to him being a bent copper does demonstrate that these posts go beyond public criticism of a police investigation and takes on a very personal attack on a neighbour.
The comments were meant to be demeaning and hurt his standing in the community.
I also consider that the history of the matter does indicate a fixation and obsessiveness.”
She told Fairbank: “I appreciate this isn’t the outcome you were hoping for and you will be entitled to appeal.”
Defending, Michael Walker said that in the last few weeks, Fairbank had been arrested twice while being recorded by PC Waltham from across the road, but no further action had been taken.
He said: “The wider this order is drawn, the more likely my client is going to be constantly arrested. The order should be limited to the facts that have been established.
“This is a glorified neighbour dispute. My client feels he’s been forcd out of his family home as a result of these incidents. This isn’t a case that stalking laws were created for.”
But Mark Sheppard, for Sussex Police, said a file was being prepared for the CPS in relation to the second arrest.
Fairbank and PC Waltham, who live opposite each other on Old Shoreham Road, have been at loggerheads since 2017 in a feud which has even featured in a Channel 5 documentary series, The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door.
In 2018, PC Waltham’s son Sam Waltham, now 29, was convicted of assaulting Fairbank’s wife and both him and his brother Lewis Waltham, now 26, were convicted of damaging their cars and threatening behaviour.
Fairbank was also charged with assaulting both brothers the previous year, but the case was discontinued because of a lack of evidence.
This is very disturbing. What the hell is a Magistrate doing being empowered to intervene in a war of words. Not happy at all with my public servants playing mother. I don’t know the circumstances of the case, but I don’t like the judgment, or, its style.