A mother-of-four has revealed how she was arrested in front of her screaming disabled children after a neighbor from hell fooled police into believing she was the victim of a violent broom attack.
Ruzena Gaborova, 48, was left traumatized after spending 13 hours overnight in a police cell after a bitter neighborhood dispute with mother-of-six Salina Begum, 47, spiraled out of control in Chatham, Kent.
Ironically, Begum’s lies were exposed through the footage she handed over to police as evidence of the ‘attack’.
Begum, who had previous convictions for harassment, was spared jail at Maidstone Crown Court last month as the judge handed her a 13-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, for perverting the course of justice.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail, Ms Gaborova has now laid bare her four years of torment, declaring: ‘I’m so glad it’s over.’
During this time, she says she was treated as the perpetrator by police, including being arrested twice in front of her children and once being locked in a prison cell for 13 hours overnight.
She claims Begum spied on her, vandalized her car, left a decapitated rat on it and tried to pay homeless men and gangsters to attack her. She also claims Begum’s husband chased her with a metal pole.
“I’m afraid of her, my children are afraid of her,” Ms. Gaborova said. ‘She bullied me. She called the police and they arrested me for no reason.”
Salina Begum, who had previously been convicted of harassment, was spared jail at Maidstone Crown Court last week
Ms. Gaborova has one daughter and three sons: one with cerebral palsy, one with schizophrenia and epilepsy and one with hearing problems.
Recalling the second time she was arrested, Ms Gaborova told the Mail: ‘I have disabled children and I was cooking for them. They arrested me for no reason. I was stressed, I was panicking.
‘My son Patrick is in a wheelchair and he screamed when he saw the police taking me away. Because of all this, I couldn’t even feed my son.”
Ms Gaborova told the Mail how she moved from Slovakia to Britain 16 years ago and always had a good relationship with the neighbors until Begum and her family moved two doors down.
The court heard there was a history of animosity between Begum and Ms Gaborova, with ‘numerous allegations going back and forth between the two’. This included Begum claiming she was harassed and racially abused.
However, Begum was often found to be the ‘aggressor or instigator’ so no further action was ever taken.
The ongoing dispute exploded in August 2022 when police were called to a fight between the two women outside their homes in Castle Road, Chatham.
Begum, who was treated as a victim, claimed she was violently attacked and handed over footage to police showing her being beaten with a broom by Ms Gaborova.
Ms Gaborova was arrested the next day, but when she provided her own CCTV footage of Begum as the initial aggressor, police decided to take no further action.
Just two months later, Begum reported the alleged assault again and submitted the same video.
And on May 18, 2023, she called the police again to claim she was the victim of another broom attack by Ms Gaborova.
Ms Gaborova was arrested at her home six days later around 2.30pm, in the presence of her children. She was taken into police custody at 3.11pm and held overnight until her release at 4.12am, the court heard.
This equates to just over 13 hours in police custody.
Shockingly, it would emerge that Begum had reused the same video of the incident in August 2022 – and that the alleged altercation on May 18, 2023 simply did not exist.
“The police believed her,” Ms. Gaborova said. ‘She was treated like the victim.
“But when they found out it was fake, they took me home and said sorry.”
The ongoing dispute exploded in August 2022 when police were called to a fight between the two women outside their homes in Castle Road, Chatham. Pictured: Begum outside the court
Describing how this made her family feel, she said: ‘It was very bad, it was very stressful. I went to the hospital because my heart pressure was high and I was always stressed.’
Ms Gaborova claims Begum first started causing problems shortly after she moved in.
She told the Mail how Begum repeatedly knocked on the door or peeked through the letterbox while she was cooking, cleaning or washing her disabled children.
Mrs. Gaborova started ignoring her, but then Begum’s children came over and harassed the family.
She claims they poured water on her door, threw eggs at the windows and left trash outside.
‘I went to her house and politely told her to stop, and then it all started. She bullied me. She called the police. I went into town with my sister and she was racist, following me around town.
‘She started fighting with me and my sister. Her husband pulled out a large metal pole.
‘He tried to hit me on the head. If he hit me I would be dead, I wouldn’t be with my children today.’
Ms Gaborova claimed she would be rude to her and her children. ‘She said my kids smell… that she would call me a fat b***h. She shouted at me.’
On the day of the alleged broom attack, Ms Gaborova said she was cleaning her house when she saw Begum peeking through her letterbox.
‘I was cleaning the house. She looked at me through the letterbox. I opened the door and she hid. I said to her, ‘Why are you looking at me?’
‘She said “f*** off you bitch”. I had the broom in my hands and she tried to take it from me. I said, “Why are you taking my broom?” She tried to kick me in the leg. I pulled her over with the broom and said, ‘Go away. Why are you doing this?’
‘The police came and she claimed I was fighting with her. But I didn’t even hit her, she hit me.
‘Her behavior was very bad, very bad. I’ve lived here for sixteen years and have never had a problem with anyone. But when she came, it was like I was dreaming. I was sleeping and woke up and thought, when is this going to start again?’
Ms Gaborova’s sister Simona told the Mail: ‘She [Begum] did very bad things on the street. She paid people money to kill my sister.
“I think she’s crazy.”
The court heard Begum expressed remorse and terror at the prospect of a custodial sentence.
According to KentOnline, Judge Robert Lazarus scolded Begum for wasting police time by filing a “false complaint about Ms Gaborova.”
He added: ‘I find it very difficult to trust much of what you have said.’
“This is a serious crime, but… there are sometimes offenses like this that are much more serious, and I don’t think this crime is so serious that immediate detention is the only appropriate punishment.”
Begum was given a 13-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 200 hours of unpaid work and 15 rehabilitation activity requirements.
A Kent Police spokesperson said: ‘When police officers make an arrest they must have reasonable grounds to suspect that a crime has been committed and it is necessary to detain them while further investigations take place.
“An arrest in itself is not an indication of guilt. However, it does provide investigators with the opportunity to collect and test evidence and then determine the full circumstances.
‘In this case, an extensive and rapid investigation led to officers identifying Salina Begum’s lies and she was subsequently arrested and charged with perverting the course of justice.
‘Due to the amount of evidence against her, the 47-year-old admitted the offense and was convicted.’
