A WOMAN banned from answering her front door in her underwear has been granted legal aid to fight the court order imposed to protect her scandalised neighbours.

Caroline Shepherd, 27, from East Kilbride, was served with an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) after her neighbours claimed she was deliberately goading them by dressing provocatively.

Under the interim order, Shepherd could be jailed for six months if she is seen in her garden, at her window or at her front door “wearing only her undergarments”.

Shepherd, who has two children, said she was the victim of a “witch-hunt”, and intends to challenge the ban.

“I want to get on with my life,” said Shepherd. “I’ve been given legal aid to fight this.”

The order was imposed at Hamilton Sheriff Court by Sheriff Hugh Neilson.

The dispute between Shepherd and her neighbours began shortly after she moved into Ardochrig, a quiet suburban cul-de-sac, in 2001.

Her neighbours complained to South Lanarkshire council, which advised them to record Shepherd’s activities in “anti-social behaviour diaries” that it provided.

The dossier they compiled included sightings of the mother of two scantily clad at her window, her front door and in her garden.

Shepherd insists the claims are exaggerated. “As soon as the diaries were given out the neighbours felt obliged to write something and it became a witch-hunt. It is ridiculous that you cannot do what you want in your own home,” she said.

“They claim that I was only wearing my underwear when I answered the door to a newspaper boy but it just isn’t true.”

Her neighbours insisted that she had deliberately set out to provoke them. They also accused her of causing a nuisance by shouting and holding drunken parties at her home.

A spokesman for South Lanarkshire council said: “Following complaints from neighbours the council instigated an investigation which resulted in an Asbo being obtained in relation to a number of anti-social acts by the individual.”

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