Brits fly out to holiday home to find family have moved in and changed locks
A lawyer has revealed he and his wife are trying to evict squatters from their Spanish holiday home after arriving for a break with their children to find strangers inside.
Marc Robinson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) Extradition Unit, is involved in a legal battle in Ibiza to try to recover his own property after the shocking discovery ruined his family’s hopes of an Easter getaway.
The ongoing nightmare facing the legal expert, who spent more than 17 years as a CPS prosecutor and ended up dealing with murder and kidnapping cases, was revealed today by the Spanish digital newspaper The Objective.
The Robinsons flew to Ibiza with their daughters on April 4 and got to their property around 10.30 pm to find the lights of their holiday home in the municipality of San Antonio were on and the door locks had been changed, the publication reported.
The couple called the police who spoke to a man inside who said to have admitted he was squatting there with his wife and two children because he “didn’t have anywhere else to live”.
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A friendly neighbour is understood to have told the Robinsons they saw at least another four men in the garden when officers left.
Mr Robinson’s wife Sophie told The Objective that nearly a month on, they are still trying to recover their property after filing two separate complaints with a local court.
One is a lawsuit against the squatters which she told the publication hasn’t even been admitted for processing yet.
Mrs Robinson told The Objective: “The police report hasn’t reached the court yet and preliminary proceedings to evict them from our house still haven’t been opened.
“The Civil Guard told us they couldn’t do anything because when they arrived, there was only a man, a woman and two children they couldn’t evict without a court order because they say they’re a family and don’t have anywhere else to live.
“But we know there are more people in the house and it should be easy for the police to prove it."
Mr Robinson was a trainee solicitor in London and Hong Kong before becoming a university law lecturer and then joining the CPS in March 2004.
He describes online how he “cut his teeth prosecuting at Bow Street Magistrates Court and the West London Youth Court” whilst managing Crown Court cases and graduating to prosecuting kidnappings and serious money laundering cases.
He moved to the Homicide Team at the Old Bailey in 2008.
In later years, before taking up his current post as unit head at the CPS Extradition Unit he worked as a UK Liaison Magistrate to Spain and assisted Spain’s Ministry of Justice with the formation of the Spanish Asset Recovery Office.
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Spain is infamous for its slowness in evicting squatters, leaving property owners who fall victim with the feeling they have virtually no protection against the problem.
Courts can take more than a year to resolve cases and many homeowners end up paying private firms specialising in dealing with squatters or gifting the squatters cash to move out.
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