Sophie Gatacre, 58, regularly shouted and screamed at Karen Reichenbach and her mother Siriratana Reichenbach during a three-month campaign of harassment
(Picture: Tristan Kirk)An actress unleashed a torrent of abuse and racist slurs at her Notting Hill neighbours and left them afraid to step outside their own front door, a court heard.
Sophie Gatacre, 58, shouted and screamed at the mother and daughter during a three-month campaign of harassment, loudly banging doors and hurling abuse when she knew they were home.
They said Gatacre deliberately cluttered their communal hallway with items, and the daughter accused her neighbour of defecating on the front doorstep, Westminster magistrates’ court heard.
“Both my mother and me feel consistent anxiety and unsafe in our homes,” she said, adding that she has struggled to sleep due to the “stress and strain of these living conditions”.
“It is clear to me she knows how to alter the manner in which she behaves and communicates.”
Her mother said she was afraid to go out to check the post or empty the bins, for fear of a fresh round of abuse. “I know it is safe to do that when I hear she has left the building,” she said.
The harassment happened between December 2021 and February this year, at the shared Notting Hill property in McGregor Road where homes sell for up to £4.2 million.
The neighbours, who live upstairs from Gatacre’s ground-floor flat, say they were particularly targeted due to their Thai heritage, including with comments such as “I’ve been to Thailand and they are horrible people”.
Gatacre, who has performed on stage and screen and took her one-woman comedy show — Samantha’s Hotline — to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, admitted harassment and two racially aggravated public order offences.
She began targeting her neighbours just days after being fined for an assault on the owner of her local restaurant, the Chipping Forecast, and racist abuse of another man.
Gatacre’s lawyer said her client had been in hospital for mental health treatment since July. She added that the actress had become acutely distressed and that led to the offending.
Magistrates ordered Gatacre to pay a £300 fine, plus £85 in costs and a £34 victim surcharge. She is now the subject of restraining orders.
