A woman is facing a substantial spell behind bars after repeatedly stabbing her neighbour “with ferocity” in a row over noise.
Helen Tillcock left Sarah Hodges with what were described as “grave and life-threatening” knife wounds to her head, face and upper body when she attacked her in the communal garden at the property they shared in Barnsole Road in Gillingham.
The 42-year-old – said by her lawyer to be a “depressed and isolated individual” – lashed out after being confronted by Ms Hodges over banging of doors in the early hours of July 20 last year.
Tillcock, who had told her landlord just weeks earlier that she wanted to kill her next-door resident, claimed she was the one who came under attack and had inflicted the injuries to Ms Hodges in self-defence.
But today (January 23) at Maidstone Crown Court, a jury found her guilty of wounding Ms Hodges with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
She was, however, acquitted of the more serious offence of attempted murder.
Adjourning sentence for a report to consider dangerousness, Judge Catherine Moore urged Tillcock to engage with the probation service as their assessment of her would assist the court in deciding the appropriate punishment.
During her trial, the court was told that by last summer, the two women had been neighbours for about three years.
But, having “slowly” become friends over that time, the relationship then deteriorated.
It was said Tillcock would bang a communal door outside Ms Hodges’s front door as well as complain about people seeing into her ground-floor studio flat when they were in the garden.
Giving evidence, Ms Hodges told the court the disturbance that fateful night when she had been watching the film Rocky on TV was “more than normal” and involved Tillcock “slamming, banging and kicking” on arriving home at about 1.30am.
This led to “swearing, shouting and banging” from Ms Hodges before the women ventured outside and violence erupted.
Ms Hodges said she lost consciousness at one point and, when she came to, punched Tillcock three times.
However, having not seen the kitchen knife wielded by her neighbour, it was only once she was back inside her flat that she realised she was covered in blood.
She tried to clean herself up and then, feeling faint, heard the sound of escaping air from what she described as “a real big hole” in her back, prompting her to alert the emergency services.
The attack left Ms Hodges requiring treatment at King’s College Hospital in London for multiple wounds to her scalp, temple, ear, nose, upper chest wall, left shoulder, arm and underarm, as well as defensive injuries.
In the meantime, Tillcock had been found by police hiding in a cupboard in an unoccupied, basement flat.
In bodyworn camera footage of the moment she emerged sporting a black eye to be told why she was being arrested, she replied: “Because she attacked me.”
A subsequent download of her phone revealed a series of messages to her landlord in which she had complained about Ms Hodges and asked for more privacy.
One dated June 25 last year read: “Sarah is a bloody nightmare at the moment. I want to kill her.”
Another sent in April said: “I don’t know how much more I can take before I explode. I really don’t feel comfortable in my home anymore”.
In other messages sent to another contact just 12 days before the stabbing, Tillcock described Ms Hodges as “a proper c***”, “vile” and “nasty”.
She also threatened to kill her cat, jurors heard.
At trial, the defence asserted that the knife wounds had been inflicted when Tillcock was on the ground having been “overpowered, dragged down and punched” by a “raging” Ms Hodges.
Tillcock, who has been remanded in custody, will now be sentenced on April 27.
The offence of wounding with intent carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
