Author faces £1m payout for ‘harassment by unkempt garden’

A CHILDREN’S author faces a £1million payout after terrorising her actor neighbour with her “monstrously outof-control” garden.

Amanda Lees was accused at Central London county court of terrorising Ivan Kaye, who has appeared in Eastenders and Vikings, with her behaviour after he bought the flat above her home in west London.

When Mr Kaye, 57, moved into the £850,000 property in Ravenscourt Park in 2013, he sensed tensions with her and tried to iron out any concerns, but she refused to speak to him.

He claimed that the slightest noise elicited screams from downstairs, and the police were called when he had guests. The court heard that on occasions, Lees’s scream sounded “like someone being murdered”.

She also allowed her front garden to grow so “monstrously out of control” that it blocked the light into Mr Kaye’s first-floor window, he claimed.

Beatrix Archer, Mr Kaye’s partner, said: “No matter how quietly we moved about the house, she banged, sent emails and threats, yelling constantly.

“Soon we spent the whole time upstairs, whispering and imprisoned.” Ivan Kaye, left, felt ‘imprisoned’ due to the harassment by Amanda Lees

Her behaviour led to him renting the flat out to tenants, but Lees also launched a “vendetta” against them, the court heard. Alexandra Skinner, a 19-year-old undergraduate at the time, said that the experience had left her and her flatmates crying on the telephone to their mothers.

Lees, 54, who wrote the teen trilogy Kumari, led a course of conduct “which amounted to harassment”, the judge said, as he ruled in Mr Kaye’s favour. Judge Richard Roberts accepted Mr Kaye’s claims at Central London county court, saying he had tried his “level best to get along” with Lees. His lawyers are now seeking £1million in compensation.

Lees was also issued with an injunction from threatening or intimidating Mr Kaye, his tenants and visitors, or from communicating directly with them, apart from in emergencies.

She is also banned from banging on the ceiling, shouting or screaming at those above and obstructing them in accessing or leaving the flat. She was given until Aug 20 to cut back the plants to an acceptable level.