Taxpayers will pick up the estimated £50,000 bill for a “ridiculous” legal battle in which a City banker was taken to court by his neighbour for playing football in a communal garden with his five-year-old son.
No less than a top QC, two High Court judges and two sittings of the West London Magistrates’ Court were required to deal with the case of Christopher Fleming-Brown, who was privately prosecuted by his neighbour, Paula Lawton, under the Town Gardens Protection Act 1863.
Ms Lawton, of Notting Hill, West London, had accused Mr Fleming-Brown, 46, of breaking by-laws relating to a communal space, the Arundel and Elgin Ornamental Gardens, when he indulged in a game of football with his young son.
But magistrates kicked Ms Lawton’s case into touch in November last year, ruling that such a small kickabout did not constitute a game of football, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.
They ruled that, as Mr Fleming-Brown and his son were not “teams” of footballers, they could not be guilty of breaching the bylaw on at least two occasions in October 2004 and March last year when Ms Lawton saw them playing. The magistrates also ruled that the activities of father and son did not constitute acts that might damage trees, shrubs and flowers, contrary to a separate bylaw.
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