SWNSUnexpected things drop through letterboxes all the time, it’s kind of a given it just happens, be it takeaway menus, flyers for something you’re not going to go to or, y’know, those pesky bills which keep turning up.
You may have also been the unlucky recipient of a passive aggressive note from an irritated housemate or neighbour, telling you to stop stealing their cheese or to turn your music down. Most of these things are a fairly normal occurrence that can easily be resolved.
However, shocking footage has emerged of something which might be harder to forgive. A pensioner used a homemade pump to spray his own faeces through his former friend’s letterbox, in a sickening ‘revenge attack’.
Watch the footage here:
This isn’t feuding neighbours though. Geoffrey Holroyd-Doveton, 75, stored up his faeces for two months, before driving nearly 200 miles to deposit it through Donald Wicks’ front-door.
Ipswich Magistrates’ Court heard on Wednesday, May 30, how Holroyd-Doveton believed Mr Wicks had contributed to the break-up of his marriage and ‘ruined his life’.
So he decided to take the (faecal) matter into his own hands:
SWNSStomach-churning footage shows the excrement splattered across the hallway, staircase and carpet following the late night attack on January 1 this year.
CCTV from outside the couple’s home in Braintree, Essex, showed the pensioner walking up to the front door, armed with his home-made pump.
Donning a beanie hat, he then assembled the device, which he shoved through the letterbox, and used it to spray his own excrement inside.
SWNSProsecutor Lesla Small said Holroyd-Doveton had travelled down from South Yorkshire to get his revenge while Mr Wicks and his husband Richard were away on holiday.
She said:
It would seem that the defendant defecated into a container and kept that for six to eight weeks.
Using that pump, he has pushed the excrement through the letter box, causing that to splatter over the hallway, up the stairs and onto the back wall.
The mess was found by Mr Wicks’ secretary the following morning when she went to check-up on the house. She filmed the human waste which had been blasted across walls metres away from the front door.
SWNSHolroyd-Doveton, of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to criminal damage, worth £4,000.
Mr Wicks described the incident as ‘despicable’ and ‘disgusting’, saying:
It immediately caused me to feel very anxious and unable to sleep due to the stress.
I felt my personal space, our home, had been invaded.
SWNSDefending Holroyd-Doveton, Emily Hughes said he’d felt isolated and depressed following his divorce, having had to move from his home in Braintree, Essex. She described him as being ‘incredibly sorry for his actions’.
Holroyd-Doveton was handed an eight week suspended sentence with 80 hours of unpaid work.
Presiding magistrate Michael Cadman said:
This is a pretty horrific offence. I think it is almost as bad as I have seen in my 30 years as a magistrate.
Holroyd-Doveton was also given an indeterminate restraining order not to contact or go within one mile of the Wicks’ home, and was made to pay £500 to each of them in compensation.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.