Tycoon wins Royal Albert Hall anti-terror bollards battle

FLAMBOYANT tycoon Robert Tchenguiz has claimed victory in a battle over ‘anti-terror barriers’ at the Royal Albert Hall which he says impinged on his human rights.

The barriers, which block parking outside his grandiose £20 million house adjacent to the London landmark, were introduced by orders which a judge has now quashed on the grounds that they made ‘disproportionate interference’ with his ‘human right to respect for private and family life’.

Tchenguiz tells me: ‘The anti-terrorism measures implemented were extreme and at the level in place for the House of Commons. It is difficult to see how they could be justified.’ The property developer, 61, who lives in the four-storey Victorian building that once housed the Royal College of Organists, found access to his home subject to bollards designed to prevent terror attacks.

His lawyers also argued that Westminster City Council’s decision to install them was ‘materially influenced by an improper motive’ in helping to create a parking area for the concert hall.

Mrs Justice Lang quashed the orders saying: ‘These new restrictions are clearly an interference with the Article 8 rights of the claimant and his family to respect for their private and family life and home.’ She also ordered the taxpayer to shoulder Tchenguiz’s legal costs, which he claims ‘will exceed £100,000’. Tchenguiz draws parallels between Westminster council’s actions and a probe into his affairs by the Serious Fraud Office in 2011. He says: ‘The making and the quashing of the [anti-terrorism orders] and the high consequential cost to both the taxpayers and me and my family, are not a new story to me’.

The fraud investigation led to no charges, but he says the proceedings ‘cost the taxpayer in excess of £40 million’.

His unconventional domestic arrangement featured in a BBC documentary, Robbie’s War: The Rise And Fall Of The Playboy Billionaire. It revealed how Tchenguiz, shared his home with his ex-wife, their children and his girlfriend, Julia Dybowska, 30, pictured.