I had a neighbour at the back fence who has since moved. She and other members of her family were not good neighbours in any sense of the word, to anyone around them. However, they seemed to take an especial dislike to our family.

One time, I was out walking with my dog on the street, and the neighbour drove up so close to me in her four wheel drive ute that I thought she would run over me. She had another woman as a passenger. She began yelling at me very abusively, and was threatening to physically harm me and our family and my dog. The abuse included a large number of swear words ‘f***ing c***’ for example.

I just stood there on the grass, listening in disbelief.

When she finally stopped to draw breath, I quietly thanked her for letting me know that she was threatening me and planning attacks on me, as I felt better prepared knowing about this. I asked her if she thought it would be a wise idea for me to let the police know about her threats.

Of course, each time I said something like this calmly, she would rant on even more. The threats even extended to threats of killing my dog. In any small gap in her rant, I continued to thank her for letting me know of her threats, so that I could be forewarned. I ended up calmly saying that it was helpful as I could let people know of this in case something violent did happen to me. Police would know where to look.

Throughout this, her friend sat in the vehicle with her, and did look rather incredulous about it all. She eventually drove off. She would not have expected my approach at all, and really did not know what to do.