A MAN, found guilty of breaking a council noise order, has accused his neighbour of listening to him having sex in a bid to keep a log of incidents.

Brian Collins, 51, of St Julian Grove, Colchester, was fined for playing loud music, after he lost an appeal into his conviction for breaking a noise abatement order.

Neighbour Pauline Palmer, 70, an award-winning Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator, kept a detailed diary of loud music coming from Collins’s home, Chelmsford Crown Court was told.

But the court heard Mrs Palmer kept an account of other activities Collins was involved in. She claimed in her diary she had watched him in his back garden in a hot tub with two women and noted down times when he had sex in his bedroom.

The appeal was told Mrs Palmer called in Colchester Council environmental health officials after she was plagued with loud music coming from Collins’s home.

The music and noise from a computer game were so loud Mrs Palmer kept her doors and windows shut, was sometimes unable to sleep and moved in with a friend for a few days to get away from the noise.

The court heard she kept a diary for three years, listing all the times there was loud music coming from the home or back garden.

Mrs Palmer admitted in court she had put her ear to a wall in her home to try to judge the volume of a television or radio Mr Collins had on one day.

She denied suggestions she had exaggerated the noise claims, and that she had mounted a sustained campaign to get rid of her neighbour.

At the appeal, Mr Collins said Mrs Palmer had never asked him to turn down his music and said it was never played loudly. He described Mrs Palmer, who was named Essex Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinater of the Year in January, as “nosey and interfering”.

He told the court: “I have never had anyone perv over me before or write down saying I have had sex in my bedroom or I was in my hot tub with two women.

“This is obsessive behaviour.”

Judge Christopher Ball QC ruled Mrs Palmer had been a satisfactory witness in the hearing.

Collins lost his appeal and was told to pay fines and costs totalling £465.