Woman breaches restraining order moments after imposition

Atidel Boutara Cook breached a restraining order moments after a judge imposed it on her at Highbury Magistrates Court for assaulting her upstairs neighbor and damaging her property in a dispute last December.

The incident occurred on December 17, 2023, at a Victorian house in Stanhope Gardens, Tottenham, north London, where Cook lives in the ground-floor flat and Pei Wong and her husband Louis Scott, who own the freehold, occupy the upstairs. The court heard that Scott spotted Cook cutting down a wisteria plant and pulling out other plants from the front garden as he returned home from work. When the couple confronted her politely, with Wong filming on her phone, Cook responded with profanity, grabbed the phone and struck Wong once on the forehead and twice on the chest with her crutch, the court was told.

Video footage shown in court captured Cook holding garden shears outside the front door, Scott saying, "This is really horrible, you doing this," followed by screaming, shouting and the sound of impacts consistent with a crutch striking Wong. Scott described Cook as losing control upon noticing the filming, adding that he caught his wife as she fell backward and feared for...