Semi-detached
Man who lost home and liberty over dispute with neighbours loses appeal
The Court of Appeal has upheld a 15-month prison sentence on a man who fell out with his neighbours. Mark Coates, from Robertsbridge, near Hastings, was sentenced to 64 weeks for contempt of court last September after he and his wife Louise became enmeshed in a boundary dispute with Janice Turner and Brian Greenwood. The two couples lived on either side of the party wall dividing a semi-detached building in Eatenden Lane. Coates received a separate prison sentence earlier this year.
Boundary disputes between neighbours are not unknown but this one reached a different level — as the Daily Mail reported in March 2024:
The story so far
September 2022 After a five-day hearing at Hastings county court, Judge Venn ordered Coates to pay Turner and Greenwood £260,000 damages plus costs at the highest level. Coates was also ordered to remove various items and structures from his neighbours’ property and take down surveillance equipment.
October 2023 Venn found that Coates had breached the court’s orders and sentenced him to 36 weeks’ imprisonment for contempt.
December 2023 The Court of Appeal released Coates after he had served what amounted to a 12-week sentence. Lord Justice Peter Jackson warned him that “any breaches of the judge’s orders in the future would be likely to lead to a substantial term of committal”.
March 2024 The county court ordered the sale of Coates’s home to pay the damages, costs and interest, which had risen to £475,000.
April 2024 Coates’s neighbours brought a second contempt application against him, alleging that he had again breached the original injunctions.
June 2024 Coates started destroying his home. He climbed onto his own part of the roof and threw tiles at Turner, before climbing onto his neighbours’ roof and damaging tiles there.
July 2024 Coates was remanded in custody at Lewes Crown Court on charges including criminal damage.
September 2024 Venn sentenced Coates to 15 months for contempt.
March 2025 A judge at the Crown Court took the contempt penalty into account and sentenced Coates to a further four years and four months.
May 2025 Coates argued before the Court of Appeal that Venn should have deferred the civil contempt proceedings until after the criminal sentencing. He also argued that the civil and criminal sentences should have run concurrently rather than consecutively.
Judgment
The Court of Appeal dismissed both grounds yesterday. Lord Justice Birss said:
In my judgment, a sentence of 64 weeks is well within the range of sentences the judge might have imposed in this case — given the numerous proven civil contempts, some very serious — and also crucially bearing in mind this is the second contempt application and noting the Court of Appeal’s warning on that first appeal.
Moral
Be nice to your neighbours.
Many years ago some friends of mine figured out that the fence between their property and the neighbour's property was about 30 cm further into their (my friends') property than it should be. But it was clearly an error - or perhaps some cheating - that had happened many years prior to them buying their property. They decided that a dispute was pointless - that it was better to be nice to their neighbours because the extra 30 cm didn't really make any difference to them.
Our Our current neighbours and we have been for many years on the most cordial of terms for decades now BUT:
1. Within days of their arrival a point of friction had arisen over what we believed was a party wall/fence and they a party wall and mega trouble was brewing about what to do with that crumbling construction.
A property solicitor specialist and friend from nearby gave advice to me favouring our position but at the same time echoing my own advice to ANY householder:
The first rule of house occupancy: NEVER fall out with a neighbour.
The second rule: No, really :never fall out with a neighbour.
The third rule: Look at me when I’m talking to you: NEVER fall out with a neighbour.
That consummate mediator, our twin daughter Corinne smoothed it all over FAR more skilfully than I would have done.
After all on any proposed sale of the instant property in answer to the inevitable question about neighbour disputes…….?