Loathe thy neighbour
A £240k legal bill, OAP fisticuffs and 4yrs of strife... over a strip of land
TO the casual observer, it is a narrow strip of land between two homes in an idyllic Scots village.
But for two pensioners it has been the focus of a violent four-year feud and a bitter court battle costing hundreds of thousands of pounds.
David Poole and Terence Doyle, both 78, came to blows in 2014 as their boundary dispute in the village of Kinnesswood, Kinross-shire, boiled over.
Mr Doyle yesterday confessed that he has spent £240,000 in legal fees on seven lawyers over the four years the dispute has been running.
Yesterday, in the latest stage of the clash, Mr Poole’s wife and daughter lost a legal bid to ban Mr Doyle from the strip of land between the two houses, which overlook Loch Leven.
Julie Poole and Jennifer Morris raised the action at Perth Sheriff Court and claimed Mr Doyle had moved a boundary fence, placed a pole in the driveway and painted a yellow boundary line.
They told the court Mr Doyle had moved boundaries, taken possession of land, used weedkiller and damaged the driveway.
‘He had taken a jackhammer and drilled up a large section of the driveway,’ they said.
In his defence, Mr Doyle said the Pooles had built a driveway on the land, which they do not own.
The court hearing came four years after Mr Poole was put on trial for allegedly assaulting Mr Doyle. At the time, Perth Sheriff Court heard that the men ended up rolling around on the ground as the feud erupted into violence.
They were seen grappling and eventually had to be separated by a passing rugby referee. Giving evidence to the trial, Mr Doyle compared Mr Poole to a ‘trained cage fighter’ and ‘a puma’. He said he had sustained injuries which led to ten weeks of hospital visits.
Mr Poole was eventually cleared by Sheriff Fiona Tait, who said it was impossible to establish how the fight started. She told them: ‘What I will say is that it is perfectly clear neither you nor Mr Doyle behaved in a manner fitting for your age.’
Yesterday, Mrs Poole and her daughter asked for it to be declared that the Keepers of the Registers of Scotland had ‘erred’ in drawing the property boundaries.
Sheriff Richard McFarlane acknowledged a lack of clarity but rejected the claim for an interim interdict preventing Mr Doyle from entering the disputed area.
He said: ‘There’s clear competition between the parties as to where their boundaries lie.
‘I’m not persuaded the balance favours the pursuer.’
Mr Poole last night declined to comment. Mr Doyle said: ‘The whole thing is a disgusting affair.’