Pensioners spent over £100,000 in failed legal bid to remove lantern | UK News

Pensioners who spent over £100,000 in a failed attempt to sue their neighbours over a large lantern in their garden have blasted the High Court after it rejected their appeal.

Roger Hunt and his wife Margaret, both 80, became embroiled in a bitter legal row with neighbours Frances and Graham Pollard over their Victorian lantern, which they claimed kept them up at night.

The Hunts, who live with their adult son Jonathan, claimed the Pollards put up the Victorian lantern in order to spite them and cause a nuisance.

But after an exhaustive legal process, both Folkestone Magistrates’ Court and the High Court found that the Hunts could not prove that the lantern constituted a public nuisance- which would have left their neighbours liable to criminal proceedings.

After their case was rejected by magistrates, the Hunts attempted to appeal their case by claiming electrical engineers had measured the alleged light pollution by the lantern incorrectly.

But Matthew Withers, representing Mr and Mrs Pollard, said that the magistrates had been well aware of where the light readings submitted by the engineer had been taken from, but had rejected the case anyway.

‘The magistrates were not wrong. It was a conclusion open to them based on the facts,’ he said.

Mr Justice Bourne agreed and dismissed the appeal. He said: ‘The question was not if there was a departure from guidance, but whether there was a statutory nuisance. The magistrates simply identified a lack of sufficient evidence.

‘No more was needed in this case. The appellants have not shown that the magistrates made any error of law and this appeal will be dismissed.

Mr and Mrs Hunt were ordered to pay most of the costs of the appeal, having already had to foot the cost of the trial as the losing party. 

The judge ordered that they pay £18,000 of their neighbours’ costs of the appeal, with their bills totalling £26,000 for last week’s hearing. The total costs of the trial were later revealed to be over £100,000.

Following the verdict, Mrs Hunt, a retired school teacher, said: ‘This is just us being picked on – we are lucky we have the means to stick up for ourselves in this case.’

Mr and Mrs Hunt said they fear that the Pollards are attempting to wear them down to the point they sell their house.

Their son Jonathan said: ‘I think [the Pollards] have an ambition to develop that property. And they see us as being in the way.

‘I think that nothing would please our next-door neighbours more than if we were to sell our house and leave.

The Hunts say they moved into their home with their son in 2012 to enjoy a more quiet and restful time in the picturesque Kent town.

In a bizarre twist, they added: ‘We think the lantern was actually first attached to our house! There was a widow who downsized from here to the Pollards’ house and we have seen pictures on the brochure for this house where the lantern is on ours.’

Speaking outside court, Mr Hunt added: ‘I told my parents not to do this.’

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