16 May 2023 , 13:22
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A “menacing gang” of pensioners are being sued for £1.3million, accused of a campaign of harassment against their millionaire neighbours.
Property magnate Mark Randolph Dyer lives with his wife Clare in a £2.6million home, with a pool and tennis court, in Albury, in the Surrey Hills.
But they claim to have had their lives ruined by a “vendetta” organised by four elderly neighbours.
The quartet - all members of the local Brook Residents Group - comprise GP, Dr Andrew Cross, 63, retired bank executive David Small, 81, and his wife Susan, 78, plus charity trustee Patricia Webb, 77.
They are accused of ganging up to harass the Dyers including looking at them in a “spooky” way.
'My selfish neighbour stole our parking spot - my revenge means he'll regret it'
Mark Dyer outside London's High Court (Champion News)
'Menancing' pensioner David Small (Champion News)Alongside that they allegedly used telephoto lenses to intrude on their privacy and trespassed on their land amid a long-running row over the Dyers’ building plans.
In one alleged incident, Mr Small, who worked for the Bank of England before he retired, is said to have appeared on the roof of his house “mimicking the voice” from his rich neighbours’ security system.
The Dyers claim that Mrs Dyer has undergone a “change of personality as a result of the harassment” - even refusing to leave the country and living in a “permanent state of worry”.
But the quartet claim they have done nothing wrong and slammed the case as “vexatious” and a “misconceived attempt to litigate village politics and perceived insults”.
Dr Andrew Cross is one of the quadruplet accused of targeting the millionaire couple (Champion News)
Patricia Webb is said to have a vendetta against the Dyers (Champion News)The case reached court last week as Mr and Mrs Dyer, both 58, applied for an injunction against their neighbours, pending their full claim at a later date.
After moving in in 1997, a decade after they got into trouble with local government after they were found to have installed a “permanent helipad” which they were told to remove.
The Dyers also own a nearby field and two cottages and over the years, friction has grown with their neighbours as they lodged over 50 planning applications as Mrs Dyer tried to develop her real estate.
The couple now say they have been the victims of a calculated bid by their neighbours to thwart their development plans, and in a unique court fight are seeking an injunction “prohibiting them from objecting to planning applications”.
The Surrey home of Mark and Clare Dyer, worth £2.6million (Champion News)On top of that, the couple are suing for £1.3m compensation to reflect the alleged drop in property value caused by the slew of objections, while the targeted injunction is also aimed at barring acts of “trespass and harassment”.
Their barrister, Richard Barraclough KC, told the court the harassment took the form of bombarding Guildford Borough Council with often spurious objections to their planning proposals, or individual acts of harassment such as “spooky gazing” or the intrusive use of a telephoto camera.
'Neighbour outraged I ignored the door when they knocked - and said I'm selfish'
Mr Small was accused of deploying a camera with a long range lens to photograph his neighbours and being overly “concerned with their private lives”.
The Dyers have previously been involved in a dispute with another elderly villager, next-door neighbour David Baker, 80, after accusing him of 25 years of harassment, culminating in a fire damaging the fence between their gardens in June 2021.
Picture shows planning drawings setting out the layout of the homes of rowing neighbours Mark Dyer and David Baker, in Albury, Surrey (Champion News)None of the four was suggested to have any link to the fence fire, but Mr Baker, who denied wrongdoing, was allegedly helped out in the dispute when it came to drafting letters and documents, which the Dyers claim was another form of harassment.
“The claimants suggest that the conduct of the defendants is aimed at them whether by individual acts or through the planning process,” he explained.
“It’s a personal vendetta - say the claimants - either through direct acts of harassment or by indirectly using the planning process as a device to harass them.”
But the quartet’s barrister, Amy Proferes, said the individual acts of alleged harassment were petty and in many cases stretched far back into the past - with the Dyers even complaining about “a single incident of alleged trespass by Mr Small” going back in 1998.
The planning issues raised by the Dyers were their “real axe to grind”, she alleged, adding: "The other allegations are being used to justify a very unusual basis for a harassment claim.”
And she insisted the Dyers were seeking to put a sinister gloss on innocent acts by her clients, telling the court: “They seek to frame every action or comment by any of the four as part of a coordinated campaign and the defendants - three of whom are elderly - as a menacing ‘gang’.
“My clients vehemently deny any harassment of the Dyers.”