Duke’s company sued over Mayfair block parties with ‘pimps and drugs’
Hugh Grosvenor denies liability for not putting an end to three-day soirées and anti-social behaviour
A COMPANY owned by the Duke of Westminster is being sued by a businessman over claims a Mayfair property it owns has played host to pimps and three-day parties.
Peter Clifford, a millionaire lawyer, lives in a £4.2 million mews house in the heart of Mayfair next door to a block of flats owned through a company by Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster and a godfather to Prince George.
Mr Clifford, 62, claims he has had to endure the noise of three-day parties, drugs being dealt and even prostitution at the block, which is in a “high-class” area where some of the UK’S most expensive townhouses are located.
Mr Clifford says things got so bad that his master bedroom was rendered “uninhabitable” by the noise outside, while a “pimp” once stood just 3m away from his window.
He blames the problem on some of the next-door flats having been sub-let and on short terms, making the block attractive to “organised criminals” and on the duke’s company, Grosvenor West End Properties, for not doing enough to stamp it out.
He is now suing the company at Central London County Court, claiming damages for “distress” and for the £1.5m he says the “nuisance” has knocked off the value of his home.
But Grosvenor denies liability, saying it took “reasonable” steps to abate the issues at the flats, Bloomfield Court, which are next to Mr Clifford’s Bourdon Street home. It says it wrote to tenants to warn them about their responsibilities to neighbours, employed a security guard and installed CCTV in October last year, after which the problems were much improved. It also informed the police and Westminster City Council of antisocial behaviour concerns and had taken steps beyond its actual legal obligations to tackle the issues, with problem tenants moved on. Outlining the case, Mr Clifford’s barrister, Tiffany Scott KC, said Bourdon Street has been described by estate agents as “one of the most prestigious” addresses in Mayfair.
As well as owning the Bloomfield Court block of 12 flats, Grosvenor is also the freeholder of Mr Clifford’s house next door in the “quiet” residential street, where he moved in 2003.
But she said anti-social activities had been linked to the block which were “inconsistent with the quiet and highclass residential character of the area”.
They included drug dealing, prostitution, unauthorised short-term lettings, loud parties and even threats of physical violence to neighbouring residents. And she claimed Grosvenor had not done enough to tackle the problems.
Mr Clifford said he had to install CCTV cameras to deter bad behaviour.
The judge is expected to give a ruling on the case at a later date.