When I moved into my flat 20 years ago a famous TV star lived directly across the courtyard garden.
Every morning this flabby fella would stand at the full-length window drinking his coffee and scratching, while stark naked.
It was putting me off my Sugar Puffs.
So I popped over and asked if he’d close the blinds, wear a dressing gown or move the flowering fig on the patio into my line of sight. He chose the robe – and apologised.
He’s moved now, but if his current neighbours cop an eyeful they might get him slapped with a Community Protection
Notice, meaning a £100 fine if he’s even glimpsed in the raw again.
CPNs are the new Asbos – and they’re getting utterly out of hand.
There’s been a 58 per cent rise in orders issued by local authorities, for “offences” such as having an untidy garden, feeding pigeons or swearing.
Anything deemed to have “a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality” can be banned.
And, if the notice is breached, councils can issue on-the-spot fines of £100 or £2,500 if it goes to court.
But a freedom of information request has revealed the heinous crimes behind some of the 20,000 CPNs issued since 2014.
Like “cockerel disturbance”, keeping pigs, feeding birds, having a dilapidated shed, not trimming hedges and putting up a poster.
In Staffordshire a CPN banned “wailing, jabbering, crying and hammering on the wall type noises” following a neighbour’s complaint.
And spare a thought for gran Kay Crane, 81, from Stockport.
She was banned from wearing a bikini in her own back garden in case children in the nursery next door saw her – and even indoors, if she went near the windows.
The former model called it bullying, adding: “What century are we living in for goodness sake?”
The last one – about 1984.
And this Big Brother intimidation is helping cash-strapped councils rake in money from petty fines.
Of course, anti-social neighbours can blight people’s lives and we must be able to challenge bad behaviour – but through the courts as with Asbos, so folk can defend themselves.
Josie Appleton, director of civil liberties group the Manifest Club, says: “These new orders are a scandal in comparison. You can be issued with a legal order by a ‘town centre warden’ filling in a form.
"This is a cowboy approach to criminal justice that brings the law and local authorities into disrepute.”
I call it a bare-faced cheek.
