When Corrine Rotherham and her husband Peter bought their dream £675,000 bungalow in the sleepy village of Urchfont in 2011, they were absolutely delighted with their purchase.

Set in the Wiltshire countryside, and winner of a Best Kept Village award for two consecutive years, where properties routinely sell for upwards of £1.7million, it ticked all the boxes for the couple.

The semi-retired auditor, 60, and her IT worker turned tree surgeon partner, 61, had long been in search of the quiet life – and their new house appeared to be the answer to their prayers.

They excitedly settled into the property, which was on a private road, next door to a woman living alone, who had lived on the street for some 20 years and seemed perfectly pleasant.

But fast forward to today, the Rotherhams have been left on the verge of leaving their forever home – which proved far from the countryside paradise they hoped for.

Instead, their time in Urchfont has been a 'living nightmare', marked by endless disputes with the pensioner next door – who turned out to be 'the neighbour from hell'.

Over the years, Zoi Hayes, 68, has variously spied on the couple through a hole she cut in her hedge, bashed her wheelie bin at 5.45am outside their bedroom window and even thrown five rotting mole corpses into their garden.

Her actions eventually saw her handed a restraining order preventing her from contacting the Rotherhams for five years – but despite the ruling, the abuse continued.

In her latest brush with the law, the pair's nemesis is accused of violating the order by leaving her noisy lawnmower running in her garden one balmy summer evening to deliberately spoil a get-together of wine and tapas thrown by her neighbours for their friends.

Hayes has now appeared at Salisbury Magistrates' Court where she admitted harassment by breach of restraining order.

She is now facing the possibility of jail time when she is sentenced next month.

Clearly disturbed by her ordeal, Mrs Rotherham invited the Daily Mail into her home this week to detail how the bitter 15-year feud had taken its toll on her mental health and her marriage.

In July last year, she and her husband hosted a dinner party in their garden for eight friends for the 'first time in years', having been long cowed by their neighbour's campaign of harassment.

But while they lapped up the summer sun, Hayes soon switched on her lawnmower – and kept it running to deliberately 'frustrate and annoy' the couple.

Mrs Rotherham told the Daily Mail: 'It was a lovely evening and it was so warm that we could sit outside. Most of the people there knew about her and knew what she was like.

'We weren't loud but we were just chatting. We had some drinks and some tapas food.

'We must have been out for about half an hour when [the lawnmower] started and I told everyone that it would be over soon.

'I said it was a breach of the restraining order and I was going to call the police because I was so angry.'

The partygoers tried to carry on as normal, chatting and playing some quiet music for an hour – but Hayes continued to run her noisy mower.

Deciding enough was enough, the infuriated guests marched next door, armed with a hidden camera, to confront her.

Mrs Rotherham said: 'I told everyone that I could not get involved with her because I had to be whiter than white so they went round with a hidden camera.

'They got her to admit that she was doing it because she knew I was out there and she wanted to wind me up.

'She asked if I go on about her and they all said that I never mention her. She was so patronising but eventually agreed to turn it off.'

The secret footage recorded by the guests would later be shared with police – and form part of the prosecution against the neighbour for having breached her restraining order.

This final incident, before Hayes moved away earlier this year, to Dorset, marked a more than welcome conclusion to her persistent abuse of the couple.

Their neighbour had already breached the restraining order once before, in 2023, which saw her spared jail and handed a six-week sentence, suspended for a year.

And the Rotherhams were also not the only residents of the village she targeted, with the pair once spotting her in another neighbour's garden, violently taking a pair of secateurs to the plants.

Mrs Rotherham said: 'She made our lives absolute hell for 14 or 15 years. It was like living with a Peeping Tom who was absolutely obsessed with you.

'She cut a hole in the hedge so she could look through so we had to grow it out. We avoided her like the plague. It was just hell. She was a compulsive liar and a neighbour from hell.

'She moved out in January and now we have lovely neighbours but she keeps looking for excuses to come back and won't give them her forwarding address.

'We spent a few thousand including on new fence panels to keep her out. But it's not just the money, it's the time and energy and peace of mind. We were just both so fed up with it all.'

The Rotherhams used to love spending time in their garden, tending their chickens and looking after their 17 apple trees.

But the couple soon instead found themselves often hiding inside, retreating to their bedroom just to avoid their neighbour.

Hayes would often shout abuse over the fence between the properties, saying 'you're a witch' and 'crawl under a stone and die'.

And on another occasion, she threw a jug of water over Mrs Rotherham – which saw her forced to go so far as to call the police, just to de-escalate the situation.

Mrs Rotherham said: 'We just love sitting out in the garden but had to move around the other side so she couldn't see. We had a music box on quietly so she couldn't hear us talking.

'On other occasions she threw dead moles over the fence and onto our property. She would also wake up and start hitting her wheelie bin at 5.45am just to wake us up.

'We had to move to the bedroom just to avoid her. It was just one thing after another.'

Even this level of abuse, however, has not been enough to drive the Rotherhams away from their home they love so much.

Mrs Rotherham said: 'We love living here and didn't want her to be the reason we moved out.

'We do a lot in the village and it is so out of character with everyone else here.

'But she would abuse our friends in public and they would all question how we put up with it.

'When the previous owners moved out they said to us, 'Never let that bloody woman over that doorstep'. But we couldn't react to her. We had to be whiter than white.'

In court, prosecutor Cristiane Finlay said: 'The brief facts of the matter are that Mrs Rotherham had been Mrs Hayes' neighbour for 15 years with a long-standing history of a neighbourhood dispute between the parties.

'She had a previous conviction on February 23, 2021, and she had a restraining order in place until February 22, 2026, after she damaged property.

'The conditions were to not contact, pester or annoy Corrine Rotherham or Peter Rotherham.

'She breached the order in 2023. You'll see from her previous convictions that she received a suspended sentence of six weeks for 12 months.

'This is a matter which is at best a deliberate breach, as what she's done effectively is pestering the victim by leaving her lawnmower on while the victim Mrs Rotherham was having a dinner party with six of her friends.

'She hasn't been able to do that for a number of years but to frustrate and annoy her Ms Hayes has put her lawnmower on and just left it there.

'One of the party attendees spoke to her about it and asked her to switch it off, which she did do.'

Defending, Raymond Tan said: 'She is no longer living next to the neighbour. She moved out in January and is living in another place.

'The previous conviction came after, I think, she pleaded guilty to the damage of a single sweetpea flower.

'It's clear they don't get on. She was living there for 20 years and they lived next to each other for 15 years.'

Hayes, who previously ran an Egyptian kitchen with her former army husband Arthur, 74, originally from Andover, Hampshire, moved into her £1million home in Urchfont in 2003.

The village is known for its picturesque charm, winning the Campaign to Protect Rural England's 'winner of winner' award for Best Kept Village in both 2024 and 2025.