A TWO-YEAR fight to silence the “neighbours from hell” who have disrupted life in an exclusive square – home to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and rocker Graham Coxon of Blur – has ended in victory.
Musician Graham Bourne represented himself on Tuesday when he was served with an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (Asbo) at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court. It bans him from Rochester Square in Camden Town between the hours of 6pm and 8am.
In May 2003 Mr Bourne and his partner, Ruth Gurny, a solicitor who once worked for Hackney Council, were given interim Asbos after neighbours complained to Camden Council about fighting and loud music.
On Tuesday Judge John Greaves ruled that Mr Bourne needed access to the flat in the daytime so he could supervise the redecorating of the property before it is sold.
He ordered Mr Bourne to pay £6,000 in court costs from the proceeds of the sale, a move the musician called “cheeky”. The couple told the court they planned to sell within six months. Next-door neighbour Sheilagh Meade, who is in her 80s, and Lisa Eveliegh, who lives below the couple, said they had been kept awake at night and driven out of their homes after rowdy music sessions and fights in the street.
Judge Greaves described Mr Bourne’s testimony as “disarmingly frank”, and told him: “You have effectively accepted your flat was a recording studio with a variety of equipment for the purpose of producing demo tapes.”
He added: “You made noise often into the early hours of the morning. It would have been appropriate to soundproof but you made no effort to do so. You did behave in an anti-social manner by recording music, shouting in the street and the things you said to the witnesses.”
At previous hearings Mr Bourne, who claims Oasis frontman Noel Gallagher has visited the flat, said the couple’s gaunt appearance was a result of serious illness, adding “we looked like crack-heads because we’d had malaria”.
He also said “Asbos belong in Nazi Germany”.
Camden’s Asbo co-ordinator Councillor Ian Walker said he had hoped Mr Bourne would be given a 24-hour ban from the square because of the level of intimidation suffered by neighbours.