Barrie Wilks (Image: Dyfed-Powys Police)
Last Updated: 1 minute ago
A 41-year-old who nailed metal sheets over his neighbour’s security cameras, made menacing faces into her CCTV while holding a hammer and daubed her fence with green paint has been jailed for two years.
Barrie Wilks was already under a restraining order when he carried out the string of breaches, and a judge at Swansea Crown Court said his behaviour towards the woman could only be described as a “vendetta”.
Sentencing
Judge Paul Thomas KC told Wilks that whatever the rights and wrongs of the dispute between the pair, court orders are there to be followed and he must leave his victim alone. He said the defendant “seems determined to make her life a misery” and noted that the harassment had carried on even after Wilks was released on bail.
Wilks admitted four counts of breaching a restraining order and four of criminal damage. After a 10 per cent reduction for his guilty pleas he was jailed for 22 months, and the judge activated two months of an earlier suspended sentence to run consecutively, making 24 months in total. He will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence.
What the court heard
Ryan Bowen, prosecuting, said Wilks and the victim had been neighbours for around five years and at first had a “friendly relationship”. According to WalesOnline, things broke down and Wilks began what the court described as a “persistent course of harassment”, which led to a conviction in December 2025 and a two-year restraining order.
The order did not stop him. During June this year Wilks leaned over the woman’s fence and opened her garden gate, climbed over fences, made “menacing faces” into her CCTV cameras while holding a hammer, and nailed large corrugated metal sheets to posts to block the cameras.
He was arrested and became “agitated” in interview before being bailed. He continued targeting his neighbour the following day and went on to daub her fence with green paint. Arrested a second time, he tried to flush a blanket down the toilet in his cell.
In a statement read to the court by Mr Bowen, the victim said Wilks’ behaviour had made her life “unbearable”.
Previous convictions
Wilks, of Craig yr Henffordd, Penegoes, Machynlleth, has eight previous convictions for 17 offences, including several for criminal damage along with public disorder, harassment and assaulting emergency workers.
The court was also told of an occasion when the former Thomas Cook flight attendant was found in a shed in Penegoes wearing a wig and hiding under a blanket. When officers took hold of him he “erupted into violence and became extremely aggressive”, kicking, trying to bite the officers and at one point pulling a Pava spray canister from an officer’s belt and grabbing for a Taser. He subjected the officers to a torrent of abuse, and the struggle lasted around 25 minutes until backup arrived and he was placed in handcuffs and leg restraints.
His most recent conviction was in March this year, when he was given 16 weeks in prison suspended for 12 months and ordered to pay £1,000 compensation for obstructing an engine or carriage using a railway.
Defence
Harry Dickens, for Wilks, said neighbour disputes often give rise to “bad behaviour” and that his client now realises he has to go through the “proper channels” with any grievances. He said the breaches were best described as Wilks “pushing his luck” and that the defendant wanted to say sorry.
