Forget neighbourhood watch! Couple are banned from even looking at next door’s house
FOR 20 years they enjoyed life in their £600,000 beachside home – playing with their children on the sand, walking by the sea and simply enjoying the view.
Yet now the tide has turned for Nigel and Sheila Jacklin. After falling out with their neighbours over building work, they have been banned from even looking into the next door property.
Marketing expert Mr Jacklin, 55, and his designer wife have been warned they could receive a Community Protection Notice after being accused of harassment.
Police say they could face prosecution if they are ‘perceived by any person to be looking into any neighbour’s property’. They have also been banned from walking directly to the beach past their neighbour’s home, which is now in an ‘exclusion zone’.
The Jacklins have lived in their fivebedroom detached home in Norman’s Bay, near Bexhill- on-Sea, East Sussex, for 26 years. Five years ago clinical psychologist Dr Stephane Duckett and his partner Norinne Betjemann, from London, bought an old workshop opposite their house and converted it into a £400,000 weekend home.
The Jacklins made a series of complaints about their neighbours to the authorities, including allegations about noisy builders, verbal abuse and light pollution.
However the Jacklins were then investigated by Rother District Council and given a ‘community protection warning letter’.
Father-of-two Mr Jacklin said: ‘The police treated us like criminals even though we had reported problems with Dr Duckett and Miss Betjemann for five years.’
The Jacklins would often walk past their neighbours’ property to get to the beach. Mr Jacklin said: ‘We used to sit on a log on the beach at the back of their property. They would come out of their kitchen and film us. Sometimes they would wave at us to get our attention. They’ve never spoken to us about the issue of where we go or approached us saying they don’t like what we do.’
Last December they were invited by Sussex Police to attend a formal interview. Mrs Jacklin said: ‘I was asked, “Why do you loiter on the beach?”. I couldn’t believe it.’
In January they received the warning letter from police. It said Rother District Council was ‘satisfied that your conduct … is having the effect of harassing neighbours’ and told them to ‘immediately stop’ using ‘foul language’ in public, contacting Dr Duckett and Miss Betjemann by any means, or entering a specified ‘zone’ around their house.
It also said they must not ‘be perceived by any person to be looking into any neighbour’s property from outside their property, eg from the beach, roadside’.
If they continued, the council would issue them with a Community Protection Notice, one of several powers that replaced AntiSocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) in 2015.
Mr Jacklin said: ‘We can’t walk to and from the beach or through the village without fear of being prosecuted.’ The couple are seeking a judicial review.
Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club which campaigns against the use of CPNs, called the warning letter Orwellian and said: ‘When the police can criminalise looking, we know we have a big problem.’
The council said a CPN would be served only if there was ‘further evidence of antisocial behaviour’. Dr Duckett and Miss Betjemann declined to comment.