A Fife woman told neighbours “one of you will take your last breath” after becoming enraged by them flicking cigarettes from an upstairs flat.
Amelia Elder, 51, occupied one of the downstairs properties in a block of four in Methil’s Kirke Park.
She had an ongoing dispute with her neighbours, which came to a head last May.
Depute fiscal Alistair McDermid told Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court: “The incident forming the charge is part of a long-standing difficulty between neighbours.
“Ms Elder had complaints regarding cigarette ash coming down from the flat and coming in her window.
“On this day she went to her window at around 3pm and began shouting out of it at her upstairs neighbours.
“She was shouting things such as: ‘one of you will take your last breath’.
“She also said: ‘You slag, pick up your fag douts’.
“Neighbours were concerned as she was making threats to kill people and police were called.”
Furniture fire
Solicitor Dewar Spence, acting in Elder’s defence, said matters in the dispute had come to a head.
He said: “She is in the ground flat in a block of four.
“When neighbours moved in upstairs they had taken to smoking out the window and flicking ash and butts out of the window.
“This had, in the past, set fire to and charred some of her property.
“She had complained to the police and the council but things came to a head on that day.
“She made these threats in anger.”
He added the neighbours have since moved out of the property.
Elder admitted behaving in a threatening and abusive manner by shouting, swearing, acting in an aggressive manner and repeatedly threatening to kill people at her home on May 13 last year.
Sentence was deferred for six months for her to be of good behaviour.
