Builder: you couldn’t hear a motorbike in Symonds’ flat
THE builder who converted Carrie Symonds’ flat has claimed that its walls are so thick that neighbours could not hear a motorcycle revving in it.
The Tory leadership campaign of Boris Johnson was temporarily derailed last week by reports of a row between Ms Symonds and her boyfriend, Mr Johnson, at her flat in south London.
Tom Penn, a neighbour, called police after becoming “frightened and concerned” by shouting and banging coming from the house.
He said: “It was loud enough and angry enough that I felt frightened and concerned for the welfare of those involved, so I went inside my own home, closed the door, and pressed record on the voice memos app on my phone.
“To be clear, the recordings were of the noise within my own home.”
However, Guy Warren, the chief executive of Evergreen Homes Ltd who bought the building in January 2016 and converted it into four flats the next year, has claimed it would have been “impossible” for the argument to have been recorded through the flats’ walls.
He said the argument would have had to have been recorded through a crack under the door. The couple would have had to be shouting at 90 decibels to be heard, the equivalent of a motorbike revving, Mr Warren said.
He said: “The acoustic assessment proves that the neighbour’s claims about recording it through the wall don’t quite add up.” Mr Warren said he had spoken out because claims that the row was heard through walls in the neighbouring flat had meant that he felt some people could have doubted the quality of the conversion.
He added: “It’s vital to me that the quality of our work isn’t unfairly called into question.”
Mr Penn, who has not allowed his recording of the row to be broadcast, said he would be making no further comment on the issue.