I’ll be watching you! Anna Friel dad’s threat to her neighbour
SHE is 40 years old with a successful acting career. But it seems Anna Friel still relies on her father to fight some battles for her.
Her former next door neighbour Henry Hoppe, 66, has revealed he was threatened by Desmond Friel over a dispute about his daughter’s extension to her £1million townhouse in Windsor.
Mr Friel, a former French teacher who lives in Rochdale with his wife Julie, wrote to the frail pensioner accusing him of causing his daughter ‘grief’ and warning him: ‘I will now be watching every step.’
Mr Hoppe, a retired civil servant, took legal action against Miss Friel after ‘two years of misery’ arising from the extension to her Grade IIlisted Georgian home. But he was
‘I had two years of misery’
taken aback by the irate email from Mr Friel. The 65-year-old, known as ‘Desi’, wrote: ‘Should you wish to bully someone, try me; I think you will find that I am somewhat harder to deal with than a young lady.
‘I will now be watching every step. Every vexatious complaint, every possibly bogus attempt at claiming “compensation”, every unwarranted delay; and each time you put a foot wrong, I will serve notice and take you to court.’
He added: ‘You might for one moment consider the grief and disappointment she is feeling at present, dreading what you might come up with next.’
Mr Hoppe has now moved, having sold the property, which he had lived in his whole life, earlier this year.
He said: ‘I’ve had two years of misery. At times I have felt under threat and for somebody of my age with health problems, it’s not a good thing. Mr Friel sent me a bullying letter. I suspect he was aware I was an old man on my own.’ Miss Friel, who found fame in Channel 4 soap Brookside, bought her house in 2013 and was given permission to build a single-storey extension.
In February 2014 her builders felled a tree which crushed Mr Hoppe’s fence. He asked her to pay for repairs but claims to have received no response.
That August, after work began on Miss Friel’s extension, Mr Hoppe complained about water seeping into his house through her chimney stack. He started legal action funded by his home insurance.
In November that year he received the email from Mr Friel, who was handling the dispute on his daughter’s behalf. Eventually the chimney stack was repaired, which put an end to the water seeping into Mr Hoppe’s home.
Miss Friel’s completed extension was later found to have flouted planning rules by using inappropriate materials in a conservation area. She has been given four months to make alterations or the council will rip down the extension.
Miss Friel said last night: ‘ My father stood up for me as any father would for their child. While I had the builders working at my house my previous neighbour, Mr Hoppe, tried to persuade me to do renovations to his home, which I had no obligation to do. I am delighted to say that after such a sad start to living in my newly renovated home, the current neighbours have been nothing but delightful.’