A couple who own an idyllic £2m country home have successfully sued the county council after footballs were repeatedly kicked into the garden of their property.
St Anns, an impressive sprawl in Winchester, Hampshire, became a “no go area” after a primary school built a football pitch next door, the High Court was told.
Homeowners Mohamed and Marie-Anne Bakhty said the sports pitch had “taken over” their life, with 170 footballs kicked into their garden in less than a year.
The couple was awarded £1,000 after the High Court ruled Westgate All Through Primary School’s decision to build the pitch and stray balls landing in the garden amounted to a public nuisance.
Mr Bakhaty, a 77-year-old property developer, claimed he was forced to stop using his garden as a place of rest after the school “deliberately” built the pitch to “upset” the couple.
His 66-year-old wife Ms Bakhaty, once a keen gardener, said the “continuous, horrendous noise” of the pitch had caused her distress.
Judge Philip Glen ruled that while stray balls might be annoying, the “frequent projection” of them onto someone else’s property breached common law.
In 2021, a grassy playground was transformed into an all-weather play area with five-a-side football pitch after money was raised for the project.
It was surrounded by a green wired fence and built roughly two metres from the boundary of the couple’s home.
But by October 2022, Mr and Mrs Bakhaty issued a civil claim against Hampshire county council alleging a common law nuisance.
When Judge Glen visited the home, he found 20 footballs lining the flowerbeds of the garden, according to court documents.
He ordered the council to pay the couple £1,000 in damages for the period in which there was “excessive use” of the play area.
However, he said it would not be appropriate to grant an injunction, which is what the couple had initially requested.
He said in his judgment: “There can also in my judgment be no objection to the use by the school of the area presently fenced off behind the all-weather play area for structured activities such as natural history lessons.
“Indeed, if a net was erected to prevent balls, and other objects, from crossing the boundary fence, I cannot necessarily see that there could be any real objection to opening this area up altogether.”
He also said: “I do not consider that the defendant ‘threatens and intends’ to continue the nuisance that I have found existed, albeit that they would have liked in other circumstances to have done so.”
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