A father and daughter who launched a fatal attack on a neighbour who punctured a child’s football have been convicted of manslaughter.
Kelly Machin, 34, had been fed up with balls landing in her back garden in Leicester, so she burst one before throwing it back over the fence.
The child’s mother and grandfather assaulted her and she died almost two weeks later.
A jury found both Natalie Bollen and William Jelly guilty of manslaughter.
William Harbage, prosecuting at Leicester Crown Court, said Ms Machin had been having problems with Bollen, who lived two doors down in Waldwick Close, for several months.
She was concerned about the excessive noise made by Bollen’s children, and bothered by them regularly kicking balls into her garden.
On the day of the assault, 23 August 2016, she punctured one of the balls with a knife.
A group of women, with Bollen described as the “ringleader”, then gathered outside Ms Machin’s home shouting “Come out Kelly”, the court heard.
Bollen banged on her door, swearing and shouting: “You might not come out now Kelly, but I’m gonna kill ya.”
Ms Machin called 999 and told police that she was scared for her life.
The group of women went away but Bollen returned about 20 minutes later with her father, and her father’s wife.
A friend of Ms Machin, Winston Hinds, answered the door and the defendants “barged their way into the house uninvited”, the court was told.
Natalie Bollen punched Ms Machin about three times to the head, and William Jelly then punched or pushed her, causing her to fall over and crash into a coffee table, fracturing her ribs.
“When she was on the floor, the defendants then left her curled up on the floor crying, and holding her ribs,” said Mr Harbage.
Ms Machin called emergency services while the defendants were still in the house and in the 999 call she can be heard crying out in pain and saying: “They smashed my head up.”
Both defendants can also be heard shouting aggressively to Ms Machin before they leave.
Police and paramedics attended but it was not felt necessary for her to go to hospital.
She continued experiencing severe pain and was eventually taken to hospital on 28 August, but her injuries were regarded as not requiring emergency treatment.
However, the rib fractures caused 1.9 litres of blood to gradually accumulate around her heart, which stopped working.
Mr Harbage said she died “alone and in pain, with significant breathing difficulties” at her home on the weekend of 3 and 4 September.
Mr Hinds found her dead on the sofa when he went to her house on 5 September.
Jelly, 48, from Impey Close in Thorpe Astley, was not in the dock for the verdicts as he collapsed in court earlier and was taken to hospital.
Both he and his daughter, who is 28, will be sentenced at Leicester Crown Court in June.
Source: bbc.co.uk
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