A DISABLED author and his wife have been found guilty of carrying out a hate campaign against their neighbours - including making malicious claims of child abuse and drug dealing.
David and Jacqueline Aston targeted their neighbours by recording them “almost on a daily basis” and making false reports to the police and local authority over a three-year period.
READ MORE: Couple's alleged hate campaign against their neighbours
Jacqueline Aston, 58, reported one horrified neighbour to the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) in a bid to wreck her teaching career, claiming she was neglecting her children.
The staff nurse also claimed that the woman’s partner was running a business from his home and accused him of assaulting her at the Ferrygate estate in North Berwick.
The neighbours said that they were left “scared and worried” after discovering that David Aston, 55, had written a book called A Stroke of Fortune that featured a character who develops superpowers following a stroke.
The character then uses his superpowers to wreak revenge on the local community.
Aston, a former chartered accountant, penned the novel after suffering serious injuries including brain trauma and a massive stroke following a motorway car crash 10 years ago.
The victims of the couple described their three-year ordeal as “intimidating”, “utterly appalling” and “a living hell”, as well as seriously affecting their health.
READ MORE: Trial hears of Astons filming neighbour 248 times
The Astons denied all the allegations made against them and have stood trial over 21 days in a hearing spanning 11 months at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
High school teacher Catriona Henderson and her partner Stuart McMorris moved into Blackadder Crescent with their children in 2018 and first fell out with the Astons over the positioning of bins.
Ms Henderson, 45, told the trial that Jacqueline Aston had subsequently contacted the GTCS to report her for neglecting her children and claim that she was using drugs including laughing gas and crystal meth.
Ms Henderson said Mrs Aston had claimed she had locked one of her children out in the cold without adequate clothing in the middle of winter but the complaint was immediately dismissed by the authority.
The teacher said that the Astons had repeatedly made “frivolous” complaints about her family and East Lothian Council alone had received 140 complaints in just five months during 2019.
She also told the court that she was left “scared and worried” after finding out about David Aston’s book and believed that her family might been used as “a project” for the novel.
Mr McMorris, 46, told the court that he was left “astonished” when he found David Aston’s online profile and read the description of the novel in April 2020.
He said: “I’m shaking at the moment just thinking about this. We were almost living what we were reading here.”
Mr McMorris said that a complaint was also made to the NSPCC by "an anonymous neighbour” who claimed that he and his partner were neglecting and abusing their children.
Neighbour Marie Bain told the trial that the Astons had made her life “a misery” due to them using phones and cameras to record her “almost on a daily basis”.
Mrs Bain, 67, said that her neighbours raised a court action against her and, during the legal process, discovered they had made 248 recordings of her family - including 67 times in just one day.
READ MORE: Neighbours allegedly made woman's life 'a living hell'
Husband Robert Bain, 64, described the “constant monitoring” as “stalking” and said that he was eventually forced to cancel family gatherings in their garden.
The engineer said: “We moved to North Berwick to our dream home to retire to, but the dream has turned to a nightmare.”
The Astons told the trial that the neighbours “did not like us” and had made up the allegations in a bid to make them move away from the estate.
READ MORE: Dispute turned dream retirement into 'nightmare'
Jacqueline Aston also claimed that the reports to the police, the council and the GTCS were not malicious as she had grounds for concern over her neighbours' behaviour.
She said that she and her husband were keen bird watchers and regularly used cameras and binoculars to enjoy their hobby while inside their home.
But, after 20 days of evidence from 17 Crown witnesses and four defence witnesses, Sheriff John Cook found the Astons guilty of causing three sets of neighbours fear and alarm between October 2018 and October 2021.
Jacqueline Aston was also found guilty of assaulting Marie Bain by striking her with a bin and to breaching bail conditions on three occasions.
On Thursday, Sheriff Cook deferred sentence on the Astons for the preparation of reports to next month.
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