It is Osmanthus serrulatus - actually quite a nice plant if it was not growing into your garden.

from photo's of Osmanthus Serrulatus I can't see any of those evil thorns. Will look out for flowers in spring though to check

Surely it's a Berberis...possibly B. gagnepainii

I reckon its Osmanthus armatus ... if you're looking at pics to check, 3 appear at the top on Google, which is what I'd expect to see for this plant, although the colour green shown isn't exactly right. Other pictures shown under this name aren't this plant at all...

It's Berberis, trust me. I have this one at work.

Can you peel a bit of the bark back....Berberis should have yellow wood

I think the top picture is of cut off wood from the shrub, so the inside should be yellow if its a Berberis, shouldn't it, Badfish. I'll admit these leaves look a little long to be the Osmanthus I mentioned...

The wood looks typically Berberis and if you look right in the centre of the photo, the thorns are in clusters of 3...a trait of Berberis. Ive had enough of the thorns in my fingers to recognise it !!!!! lol

Yea, me too - got a clump stuck down my fingernail last week, still got the marks to prove it, but they were finer than the ones in the pic (B. 'Red Pillar')

Definitely berberis gagnepainii. Great burglar deterrent

The leaves look far too big to be berberis gagnepainii. They are at least 6incehs from the picture. I say Osmanthus.

I would say that the leaves from that picture are around 2" long. I have the exact same plant at work....i'll take a photo of it tomorrow.