‘Spiteful’ OAP may lose home after meter row defeat
A ‘spiteful’ pensioner who fought an extraordinary campaign to stop her neighbour reading her own gas meter is facing financial meltdown after losing her case.
senior judges told ‘troublemaking’ Carol Dickinson, 76, and her ‘bombastic’ husband, frank, 82, they were simply wrong about their legal rights.
they never had any right to block Mojgan Casillas’s access to her utilities meter during a row that culminated in Mrs Dickinson stabbing another neighbour.
the Court of Appeal’s ruling leaves the Dickinsons facing hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal bills that they fear will cost them their stockport home.
Mrs Casillas’s lawyers say they are owed ‘well over £200,000’ by the couple and the debt has been secured against their home of almost 30 years. the row focused on gas and electricity meters in the 8ft driveway between the homes in Davenport.
they are on a wall that can only be accessed from the Dickinsons’ drive and the retired couple claimed their neighbour had no right to enter their land .
the dispute has been going on since 2003 and, at Manchester County Court in 2015, Judge Charles Khan ruled Mrs Casillas in the right.
Rejecting the pensioners’ appeal yesterday, lord Justice David Richards said: ‘Where most neighbours would have found a sensible solution ..., Mr and Mrs Dickinson took their stand on what they considered to be their strict legal rights.
‘to their great cost, they were wrong about those rights.’
Outside court during the case, the Dickinsons’ son, peter, said: ‘this whole thing has mushroomed into a situation that could result in my parents losing their home.’