A 53-year-old man from Hasselt has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined €800 by the Hasselt correctional court due to a neighbour dispute, which the court classified as harassment.
His 24-year-old son received a community service sentence of 80 hours and a €40 fine. The dispute centred around a strip of grass where the father and son parked and turned their vehicles.
The man, formerly a professional footballer and now a postman, has had his car confiscated. If the son fails to complete his community service, he faces a ten-month prison sentence.
These events occurred between May 2023 and 20 June 2024. The grass was severely damaged, and tensions escalated as the older man targeted his neighbour’s Shetland ponies in a nearby pasture. He allegedly revved his car engine to scare the animals when they escaped. The victims also discovered that three of their car’s tyres had been intentionally punctured.
The father did not attend court, but the son did, admitting he frequently parked on the grass and sometimes blocked the driveway. Surveillance footage captured various incidents, including using a sprayer on the grass and sawing wooden posts marking boundaries. The accused reversed their vehicles onto the neighbours’ driveway 34 times. In one incident, on 17 February 2024, fireworks were set off at about 3:30.
The victim read a statement mentioning their eight-year-old daughter has been experiencing the harassment for several years. Police observed the child expressing fear of their neighbours to her mother. This year, further police reports have been filed.
“The defendants persistently and childishly disrupted the victims’ peace. The victims’ child is involuntarily caught in unnecessary stress and is experiencing anxiety,” noted the judge, who was surprised the father was on holiday in Italy, leaving his son to attend the court alone.
The court awarded €12,528 in damages to the affected family.
