Ashfield councillor lied to police about knife threats by neighbour, court hears

However, phone footage taken by his neighbour’s wife first showed Coun Tom Hollis, Ashfield Independents’ Ashfield Council member for Huthwaite & Brierley and Nottinghamshire Council member for Sutton West, shouting abuse over their six-feet-tall fence before making the 999 call on Windmill Close, Huthwaite.

Nottingham Magistrates’ Court also heard a recording of the emergency call in which Hollis told the handler: “He came out of the side of his house with something sharp.”

When asked if he saw a knife, he replied: “Yeah, I did, yeah.”

Mark Fielding, prosecuting, said: “While on the phone, he play-acted as if he was being chased by the male victim with a knife.

"He ran into his house, squealing, almost crying, shouting ‘don’t come at me with that’. While in the house he carried on with the call and claimed the male victim had chased him with a knife.

"By the utmost good fortune, this was all caught on camera. If it hadn't been filmed, his neighbour would have been carted away based on a malicious, concocted 999 call."

Giving evidence, Hollis’s female neighbour said two officers armed with Tasers arrived within minutes. She and her husband later moved house ‘because of the situation’, which was sparked by the coronavirus lockdown.

She said: “For the next five or six weeks he would have people coming round, have music playing and sit in his hot tub.”

The day after she asked police for Covid advice, Hollis shouted he knew about the call and boasted of his contacts with the police.

She said: “He said he knew the rules, he made the rules and we would be done for harassment of a key worker.”

The court heard he was ‘very threatening, like he wanted a fight’ with her husband.

Hollis, aged 29, is also said to have called her husband a paedophile and made allegations of anti-social behaviour and fly-tipping.

The alleged harassment, between May 2 and May 25, 2020, also included ‘a mixture of unwanted slightly obnoxious communications’ with an ‘element of bullying’ as Hollis is said to have used official council notepaper and signed himself as ‘the councillor’.

Hollis, of Yew Tree Drive, Huthwaite, denies two counts of harassment without violence. The three-day trial continues.