Sheriff rejects ban on boundary dispute man
Row sparked ‘unseemly garden brawl’ between two pensioners
An attempt to have a neighbour banned from a strip of land at the centre of a boundary dispute which once sparked an “unseemly garden brawl” between two pensioners has been rejected by a court.
Perth Sheriff Court was told that the small plot of land between two villas was once the cause of a fight between two 75-year-old men, one of whom was described as grappling “like a puma and a trained cage fighter”. The pair had to be dragged apart by a passing rugby referee, the court heard.
Now the wife and daughter of one of the men, David Poole, have gone to court to seek an interdict banning neighbour Terence Doyle from entering a small strip of land between their luxury rural villas.
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.
“He indulged in a course of conduct of moving the boundaries and taking possession of her land, causing damage to her driveway and using weedkiller,” their lawyer told the court.
“He had taken a jackhammer and drilled up a large section of the driveway.”
In his defence, Mr Doyle told the court that the Pooles had built a driveway on a piece of land between 44 and 46 Gamekeeper’s Road, Kinnesswood, that they did not own.
Mrs Poole and her daughter asked a sheriff to declare that the Keepers of the Registers of Scotland had “erred” in the way the property boundaries had been drawn.
However, Sheriff Richard Mcfarlane rejected the claim for an interim interdict preventing Mr Doyle from entering the disputed strip of land.
He criticised the land registry for a lack of clarity but said: “There’s clear competition between the parties as to where their boundaries lie. I’m not persuaded the balance favours the pursuer.”
In 2014 at the same court, a sheriff told the then 75-yearolds to grow up and act their age after hearing a trial detailing their unseemly garden brawl.
Mr Doyle, was left with a suspected broken nose and claimed he had been set upon by his rival David Poole - who was described as being like “a trained cage fighter.”
Sheriff Fiona Tait berated the quality of evidence given by both retired businessmen during the trial and condemned them for fighting at a combined age of 150.
She told Mr Poole: “I found neither yourself nor Mr Doyle to be particularly impressive witnesses. What I will say is that it is perfectly clear neither you nor Mr Doyle behaved in a manner fitting for your age.”