Please explain this to me.

The Telegraph reports:

QUOTE

By Jasper Copping
(Filed: 10/09/2006)

A mother of two has been fined for swearing at yobs who terrorised her neighbourhood.

Donna Appleyard, 32, finally snapped after months of misery in which the youths jumped over fences, trampled through gardens and shouted and swore at residents.

Ms Appleyard said she had made several complaints to police about the gang outside her home in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, but no officers had been to visit her to take the issue further.

Instead, she found herself under investigation when officers received a complaint from a 13-year-old girl, after Ms Appleyard finally lost her temper and pleaded with her tormenters: "Please, just f*** off". Two weeks later, officers called at her house and issued her with the fine.

Ms Appleyard said: "I was at the end of my tether and I admit I swore at one of them. But that's nothing compared to what my neighbours and I have suffered.

"When the police came I thought it was because I had complained. I never dreamed they had come to arrest me.

"I'm really angry that we've had to put up with this behaviour for almost a year, and then you can be taken to court and fined for shouting back at them."

Ms Appleyard was given an £80 fixed penalty notice following the incident on March 30. However, she refused to pay and was taken to court last month, when magistrates raised the sum to £120, which she must now pay or face a jail term.

Ms Appleyard said: "I had called police and spoken to our beat officer about six times. Not once had they been round to see me."

Her neighbours have been so enraged by the treatment meted out to Ms Appleyard that they have offered to pay half the fine.

Shirley Wardle, 69, said: "It is deplorable. The kids' behaviour is enough to make you commit murder, not just swear at them."

Sergeant Neil Haley, from West Yorkshire police, defended the force's actions. He said: "We appreciate that anti-social behaviour can be frustrating for people but they should not take the law into their own hands."

The case is the la-*test*-('") in which a householder has ended up in court after finally losing patience with yobs.

James Leahy, 54, a civil servant from Rutherglen, Glasgow, whose flowerbeds were regularly trampled by school pupils using his garden as a shortcut, was fined £500 for assault this month after he grabbed two teenage girls by the hair and threatened to take them to a police station.

Welcome to the British Judicial system Norm.

I personally think it's ridiculous but all the do-gooder social workers now mean that youths can just about do what they want. I too found myself on the wrong side of the law a few years back after punching the father of a kid who wouldn't quit playing football (soccer) on my front lawn!, after the dad started on my mother while she was visiting mine telling her "my kids will do what the F**k they like!"

You'd have thought that West Yorks Police would have sent someone to visit her before it got to this stage, but obviously she was stupid and admitted the "offence" to the officers instead of having no recollection of the incident or what was said, as she was being terrorised on a daily basis!

It also shows the mentality of the to$$ers at the Crown Prosecution Service - Let off all the REAL criminals, or let them pay their fines in 50 pence installments, as they need the money to buy drugs instead, but Make an Example of someone who was the VICTIM, but upset the feelings of a criminal teenager! BELIEVE ME NORM - THIS HAPPENS MORE AND MORE!!

Still, if anything, it goes to prove that Community Support Officers are not working! I'd imagine the streets there are full of them, but the kids still seem to own the estate.

PS - I'm not shouting, Just EMPHASISING!

That is just sad.

tell me about it there was something in the papers a few months back about a teacher who lost her job and got jail(i think) after shooting a bunch of yobs with an air rifle

ALthough Matt, there is a SLIGHT difference between a Section 5 Public Order Offence and shooting at someone with an imitation firearm! (think it was a BB gun as opposed an air rifle if I remember correctly.

True, I think that shooting somebody is taking things a bit far, to be honest.

Just shake my head at this one

Although in defence of the guys that did it, I'm presuming that they were probably ordered to do it