One minute Miriam Binder was standing in her kitchen making a sandwich. The next she and her lunch were showered in urine and shattered glass.

Someone had filled a latex glove with urine and hurled it through the window of the 47-year-old's rented council home in Hamsey Close, Whitehawk, Brighton.

The grandmother had become a target for estate youths, possibly as the result of her work as a volunteer for East Brighton New Deal for Communities, now known as eb4u.

Miriam is matter of fact as she reels off the incidents - the murder of one of her cats, soiled nappies dumped in her garden, doors kicked in, her car destroyed. It is an ordeal that would have left many people cowering.

She discovered the first smashed window after returning home from a day spent doing voluntary work on the estate.

She reported the damage to the authorities who put plastic on the window.

The next day she returned from work to find another window broken and the back door kicked in.

On another occasion, she stepped out her front door only to be surrounded by youths who pushed and shouted abuse at her. As she was herded along she was spat at.

She was forced to return home and sneak out of her own back door, which was easily done as her tormenters had kicked down her garden fence.

Miriam spent weeks waiting for her damaged windows to be repaired and more than a year for her back door to be secured.

While waiting for her fencing to be rebuilt, the storage room at the side of the house was burgled. She lost two lawnmowers and numerous tools.

More than once she watched helplessly as her car was attacked. Once it had to be written off.

As far as she knows, only one youngster was charged with criminal damage after ripping off a windscreen wiper.

Little wonder then when Miriam was asked to take part in the restorative justice project - a new mediation scheme designed to bring perpetrators face-to-face with their victims - it was hardly a success.

She said: "It was an ordeal I will never put myself through again. It was a platform for further vilification. Nothing was 'restored'. Not my sense of security, not my dignity and definitely not my car."

East Brighton's community safety team has dealt with 450 cases of nuisance behaviour against individuals in the last two years and its use of Asbos and acceptable behaviour contracts (Abcs) has been credited with cutting crime by eight per cent in Whitehawk.

But Miriam's first-hand experiences leave her doubting the value of such orders.

Asbos and Abcs depend on victims keeping detailed logs. Miriam has used hers to describe what she faces in her own words.

She writes: "Almost daily I have to replace plants in my front garden that have been deliberately stepped or urinated on.

"Despite the fact I haven't had babies in the house for at least four years, I once managed to fill up at least a quarter of a black bag with nappies, courtesy of an unidentified, but known, happy nappy slinger.

"Almost daily, I clear up empty beer cans.

"One of my elderly neighbours has cleared as many as 18 empty cans from his garden after a Friday night drinking session by youngsters.

"Glass bottles do not germinate when scattered over even well-manured soil.

"I know, as none of those thrown into my garden ever so much as grows a single shoot. They do cut my grandson's foot very effectively though.

"Two of my cats have been shot with BB guns, one of them requiring veterinary intervention as the pellets were metal ball bearings.

"Another of my cats was murdered by the simple expedience of having its stomach slit open from just below the throat to between the hind legs.

"The tools of Abcs and Asbos depend on individuals keeping detailed logs.

"These self-same individuals must be willing to stand up and be counted and bear witness. I did all that. I kept logs and my daughters kept logs. I made statements and bore witness.

"The original Abc 'fell into disrepute', I was told. This, I was informed, meant the youth and his parent failed to live up to the Abc.

"The answer, according to the dedicated community safety team, was to sign another Abc.

"Surprisingly enough, this did not have any effect on the behaviour of either the youth or the parent.

"It eventually came to court and an Asbo was granted for a period of five years. At the same time, the parent was put on a parenting order for six months.

"Needless to say, this did not have any of the desired effects either.

"Though the story may differ in a few details from one antisocial behaviour recipient to another, the general gist is primarily the same.

"Many of us live in the shadow of antisocial behaviour. Many of us are in a state of anxiety, living virtually under constant siege, fearful for our children, our pets and selves.

"Daily we have to face our protagonists. Watering our gardens, getting milk and bread from our local shops, stepping out to visit friends.

"Many of us are put to constant expense repairing, replacing and paying increased insurance premiums.

"Hundreds of thousands of pounds are being poured into funding youth offending teams, youth inclusion projects, support workers, link workers, advocates and co-ordinators, not to mention the costly trappings deemed necessary to cater for the antisocial louts and their indifferent parents.

"I do not want to be a Nimby. I think the way forward is to be a Yimby (Yes in my back yard). But we need support too.

"A swift response to damage, a programme that will enable us to secure our property, safeguard our gardens and help with the constant 'Chinese torture effect' of living with antisocial behaviour.

"Talking to a sympathetic 'victim support co-ordinator', though helpful in the first instance, does not address the very real issues we deal with on a daily basis.

"Cease the rhetorical rambling about Abcs, Asbos and parenting orders that effectively take years to bring about concrete changes.

"We need active, concrete support to enable us to remain Yimbys now."