An influencer and her former Chinese spy mother have been jailed for five-and-a-half years for a deranged campaign of harassment against their neighbours over a hedge.
Linda Lu, who once had an Instagram account boasting 330,000 followers, and Susan Chen, a former Chinese intelligence officer, screamed ‘derogatory abuse’ and banged paint tins during 10 weeks of trouble on a previously-serene village street.
The mother and daughter were recent arrivals in the area when an explosive row broke out with neighbours James and Lynn Smith over the cutting of a hedge separating their front driveways in Bassingham, Lincolnshire.
They branded the couple next door ‘r*****s’ and filmed Mr Smith as he went about his business, which soon escalated from ‘noises to verbal abuse and then audio playing 24 hours a day’.
Lu, a 35-year-old solicitor who has previously been the subject of misconduct proceedings, and Chen, 61, were convicted in October of causing serious alarm or distress to the neighbours.
Sentencing both defendants to five-and-a-half years each at Lincoln Crown Court, Judge James House KC said it was one of the most serious cases of its kind to come before the court.
The judge said the victims were subject to a ‘persistent, calculated and appalling’ pattern of behaviour.
’In short the defendants terrorised the Smith family,’ he said.
‘It amounted to a complete persecution of them.’
Linda Lu (above), who once had an Instagram account boasting 330,000 followers and her mother Susan Chen, a former Chinese intelligence officer, screamed ‘derogatory abuse’ and banged paint tins during 10 weeks of trouble on a previously-serene village street
Lu, a 35-year-old solicitor (above) who has previously been the subject of misconduct proceedings, and Chen, 61, were convicted in October of causing serious alarm or distress to the neighbours
He added the family’s victim impact statements made distressing hearing.
‘Their general sense of safety in their own home has been shaken to the core,’ the judge said.
Mrs Smith, a mother-of-two, said her life had changed dramatically since the harassment and she now suffered from insomnia, depression and anxiety.
She described how she still finds herself checking if her doors were locked several times a day and now uses her garden less.
The couple’s two children were also impacted, Mrs Smith said, with their eldest child being reluctant to go to sleep alone and both children also avoiding the garden.
In his statement Mr Smith described how the family’s 13 year stay in a village they loved was shattered by the arrival of Chen and Lou.
Mr Smith said the harassment was calculated and continued on an almost daily basis.
He stressed that Lu was in a trusted position as a qualified solicitor and used her legal training against his family.
The first interaction between the Smiths and the defendants involved a dispute over the hedge on July 18 last year.
Mr Smith, a teacher, told the court he went out to trim the hedge but was met by Chen, who objected to what he was doing and claimed that it belonged to her.
Lu then appeared at an upstairs window and began threatening him with legal action, prosecutor Steve Taylor said.
Red circle highlighting the divide between the waring neighbours. Mrs Smith, a mother-of-two, said her life had changed dramatically since the harassment and she now suffered from insomnia, depression and anxiety
The pair were accused of shouting derogatory abuse and harassing, including through ‘periods of loud metallic banging’ thought to have been using paint tins
The defendants then began filming Mr Smith as he continued to cut his side of the hedge between their homes.
The pair were accused of shouting derogatory abuse and harassing, including through ‘periods of loud metallic banging’ thought to have been using paint tins, between mid-July and the end of September last year.
One CCTV clip showed Mr Smith sitting in his garden and reading a book in the sunshine, with the sound of verbal abuse coming from next door, while footage from the front of the properties captured the mother-and-daughter filming him as he talked to a neighbour.
In another video taken by the Smiths, the neighbours can be heard blasting the 1920s song The Laughing Policeman on a loop in their garden. It was later discovered that a mobile phone had been left under an umbrella near their fence to play the song on repeat.
The Smiths went away in late August to ‘try and get some respite’. However, when they returned, banging from next door commenced ‘within 15 minutes’.
A fence panel was also cracked right next to the children and binoculars were used to spy on the family.
Mr Taylor told the trial earlier this year that, by September 2023, incidents were happening on a ‘daily basis’ and did not stop after the defendants were visited by police.
The court heard Chen moved into the rented semi-detached property in March 2023 – four months before the harassment began – and was then joined by her lawyer daughter.
Chen told jurors she had previously spent 14 years serving in the Chinese Army, rising to the rank of Major, and then became a ‘millionaire’ after switching to a corporate career.
She said: ‘I became a millionaire, I earned my fortune. I decided to try something new, that is why I moved here (to the UK)’.
Jurors were told Chen met Lu’s father during her time in the Chinese Army, and he rose to the rank of General before retiring.
Lu has been unable to work as a solicitor in recent months after her practising certificate was not renewed by the Solicitor’s Regulation Authority as a result of the legal proceedings.
Three years ago she was cleared of misconduct by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over intemperate posts on her Instagram account.
The defendants told police they were the ones being harassed. Chen accepted she had used the word ‘r*****s’ when ‘she was referring to people she was suing but couldn’t remember who’. She also claimed some of the shouting picked up on recordings could be explained by her arguing with her daughter.
Both defendants represented themselves in court and a trial with an original estimate of six days ended up running into its sixth week.
The Judge also made two comprehensive restraining order which prevent Lu and Chen entering Bassingham, having any contact with the Smith family and a number of other people involved in the case.