A pensioner faces a £30,000 court bill after losing a ten-year battle with her neighbour over potted plants which blocked her driveway.
Retired taxi driver Yvonne Rogers, 72, was sued by grandmother Janice Wright, after creating a garden on her side of the shared drive.
Mrs Wright complained the pots and overgrown foliage made it hard for her to push her granddaughter's buggy to her house and blocked the right of way she had.
After a decade of fighting Ms Rogers has now lost, leaving her with a £30,000 legal costs bill as well as a suspended jail term after ignoring a court order to remove the pot plants from the drive.
Fed up after years of arguing, Mrs Wright took her neighbour to court last year and won an injunction ordering the obstruction to be cleared.
When Ms Rogers failed to do so she was hauled back to Winchester County Court again in June this year when she was found in contempt of court by Judge Michael Berkley.
He said: “I accept it is distressing for Mrs Wright to have to live next door to Ms Rogers in these circumstances.
"Mrs Wright explained to me, not only is this an encroachment of her right of way, there are also actual practical difficulties that are caused.
"First, moving her wheelie bins to the front for refuse collections, and secondly getting her granddaughter's pushchair up and down the drive is made difficult because the concrete part of the driveway cannot be used by virtue of the encroachment.
"So this is not just a question of the court order being disobeyed, it is actually a matter of personal inconvenience to Mrs Wright and her family.
"I take into account the fact Mrs Wright has clearly had this right of way being interfered with for quite some time.
"By the extent of the foliage which has been allowed to grow, one might say Mrs Wright has indeed been very indulgent to Ms Rogers over the years."
In his ruling he said Ms Rogers had denied encroaching on the right of way and claimed her neighbour was trying to force her out of her home in Portchester, Hampshire, so she could buy it cheap.
Her response to the court proceedings had been to not turn up and instead send a string of emails, seeking to "threaten, demean and accuse" those involved, including Mrs Wright, he said.
In September, he sentenced her to six months' imprisonment for ignoring the injunction.
But appealing to have the sentence overturned last week, Ms Rogers' barrister John King said she had removed the pots after the hearing in June and would now cut back the bushes.
She also suffers "severe underlying" health issues and now plans to leave the street in order to put the dispute behind her, he said.
He told the court: "This is a long-running and acrimonious dispute between neighbours which has been allowed to spin out of control, both in the courtroom and outside it, with the sad but inevitable consequences for Ms Rogers’ mental health which has added to and further exacerbated her already fragile physical health
"She has taken active steps towards selling her property and moving away from the neighbourhood.
"She believes the sale could be completed within a year."
Lord Justice Stuart-Smith said the court would give a full ruling on the sentence appeal at a later date, but would be suspending Ms Rogers' sentence so she does not go to jail.
But she faces lawyers' bills totalling about £30,000 which she had been ordered to pick up during the dispute.
