A nuisance pensioner who carried out a campaign of harassment against his neighbors in Coventry has avoided a prison sentence after claiming he is moving to Bulgaria, local media reported.

Julian Dare, 67, was given a restraining order in 2011 preventing him from bothering people living in flats in Vinecote Road, Longford, Coventry Telegraph reported.

But in June last year he started banging on people’s doors, pressing intercom buzzers and making repeated late night phone calls to neighbors.

Dare started taking photographs of one neighbor for no reason and held an electric drill against another in a threatening manner, a court heard.

Four months later he was arrested – but he told police that all his neighbors were setting him up, even though he later sent one an apology card.

He was released on bail by officers on the condition that he stop harassing his neighbors.

But instead of playing loud music and rowing with them Dare changed tactics, posting offensive notices on his door for his neighbors.

At the crown court in Leamington, Dare appeared to be sentenced for two counts of breaching the restraining order after previously pleading guilty.

Prosecutor Bernard Linnemann said since Dare started harassing his neighbors one family has moved out and another is trying to, but can’t because of a requirement to tell potential buyers about who lives nearby.

Linnemann said that in recent months there had been no further incidents. Dare, who breathes with an oxygen cylinder, suffers from obstructive coronary pulmonary disease after years of heavy smoking.

Sarah Allen, defending, said: “If he was given a custodial sentence there would be a risk to his physical and mental health.”

She said that Dare feels he is also a victim of his neighbors and has made complaints about some of them before.

Allen was quoted as saying that Dare has put his flat on the market and has bought a property in Bulgaria.

Handing Dare a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, Recorder Graham Cliff said: “When this order was made in 2011 it was to stop you behaving in the way you are alleged to have been behaving towards your neighbors.

"When it was made it was there to be obeyed, but you continued to harass your neighbors, showing a total disregard to that order.

“If matters had continued in that vein I would have had no alternative but to send you to prison, but I am told there have been no further incidents.”

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