A "loner" has been given a four-year anti-social behaviour order for plaguing his neighbours with noise caused by a bizarre network of door chimes.

Unemployed Anthony Walsh, 59, would sit on a settee in his "shambolic" front room, with at least six £1 door bells within easy reach, and press them at intervals throughout the night, Bingley magistrates heard.

Tunes such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star rang out from speakers up the stairs of his home and in his cellar kitchen and through the walls of the house in Bishop Street, Heaton, Bradford, the court was told yesterday.

Walsh said he bought the door chimes at a 'pound' shop and set them up to repel mice, which had infested his home, and as a "pay back" to gangs of youths playing loud music in the street behind his house.

He said: "It was my way of saying I don't even have to leave my seat for you to hear me."

But after a five-year campaign of harassment by Walsh, which included using a hammer to bang on the adjoining walls, playing loud music and littering an adjoining garden, his neighbours called in Bradford Council environmental health officers and the police to put an end to his antics.

Next door neighbour, Amy Gordon, who is in her 70s, has had a stroke and suffers from arthritis, anxiety and depression, was kept awake because of the late-night nuisance in Walsh's back-to-back terraced home, she said in a witness statement.

He was also arrested for allegedly threatening to "kill" her on July 4, the court heard, but police took no further action.

In the statement Mrs Gordon said Walsh had also held up a catapult, a petrol can and other items up to his front window to taunt her and others and dropped waste in her garden.

Walsh denied her claims.

But Bradford Council environmental protection officer, Ian Farmer, giving evidence at Walsh's trial yesterday, said police found a hammer, a doll, a catapult, a petrol can full of stale urine and the network of door chimes.

They also discovered Frankenstein and skull face masks, he said.

Mr Farmer said: "The first thing I noticed was the door bell triggers arranged on the settee. It was clear that Mr Walsh spends a lot of time in there because of the indentation on the seat of the chair.

"The wires from the door bell triggers led upstairs and the speakers were on the treads of the stairs and in the lower rooms. By the way they were placed, it seemed that Mr Walsh could trigger them from where he was sitting.

"There was at least half a dozen of them and I couldn't see any reason for them other than to cause a nuisance to a neighbour.

"The rest of the room was cluttered with clothes and other artefacts. It was fairly shambolic.

He added: "A hammer was noted that seemed to fit the marks on the hall and stair walls. That would explain the intermittent impact noise that was being experienced by Amy Gordon."

Another neighbour, Mustaq Ahmed, who lives in Buxton Street, directly behind Walsh's house, described his neighbour as "lonely and mysterious" and "a bit strange" and Arjasab Khan, of nearby Temple Street, said he had been verbally abused by him.

PC Catherine Vincent, an officer at Eccleshill police station in Bradford, revealed that Walsh has a previous conviction for harassment of a Mrs Dearlove, whom he bombarded with telephone calls in October 2006.

She was the victim of a grudge Walsh had against a postman named Dearlove but who was no relation to the woman.

Walsh told the court yesterday that his neighbours had conspired against him.

But the magistrates took only ten minutes to decide to grant the order, banning Walsh from * banging unnecessarily on the interior walls of his home.

* making unreasonable noise by throwing heavy objects down the stairs, sounding electrically operated door bells and other loud noises.

* Playing and/or singing to loud music in his home.

* Depositing waste materials other than into an appropriate waste disposal receptacle.

Chairman of the bench, Harold Mathers, said: "We feel that the Council has proved beyond reasonable doubt that you have behaved anti-socially."

After the case, John Croslandcrrt, Bradford Council's Anti-social Behaviour officer, welcomed the four-year order.

He said: "Anti-social behaviour legislation was brought in for just this kind of behaviour that lowers the quality of life for people on a daily basis.

"His neighbours were not harassing him and it is wonderful that a number of white and Asian families who have been affected for a long period of time have joined together to stop this nuisance.

"They are the community and Mr Walsh did not want to be part of it. This four-year order means those residents can have some peace."