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| Fence Wars: Robin Christie & Julia Stafford |
Neighbours in a quiet cul-de-sac are continuing to support a fellow-resident, now facing imprisonment for spoiling the unlawful plans of a City lawyer and his businesswoman wife during a bitter boundary dispute.Business consultant Robin Christie, 65, prevented their tranquil corner of Richmond-upon-Thames becoming a busy HGV cut-through for the mega subterranean development of an Edwardian former water works.
After spending £850,000 on the detached property in the Hampton Village Conservation Area lawyer Samuel Tempest Brooks, 44, and wife Julia Stafford, 44, obtained planning to radically extend the property despite local objections.
However, they failed to secure local authority permission to demolish the boundary wall to create a gated entrance to their site via the cul-de-sac, yet began making plans to knock it down regardless.
At Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court Deputy District Judge Patricia Evans ruled Christie overstepped the mark in voicing his objections to the couple and he was convicted of harassing Mrs Stafford between July 1 and September 28, 2024.
Prosecutor Barto De Lotbiniere submitted the offence constituted “high harm” to the victim and attracted a sentencing range of six to twenty-six weeks imprisonment, with a starting point of twelve weeks.
Christie, who has never been in trouble with police and has a sentencing hearing later this month hanging over him, said this week: “My reputation is in shreds. I am distraught about the whole thing.
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| Robin Christie & Neighbours |
“I help businesses get themselves organised and now my career is in danger.
“The conclusions of the trial judge in her judgement was ferocious, but that is because she was only allowed to hear half of the story.”
Court rules forbid Christie directly cross-examining Mrs Stafford and he feels the appointed lawyer, who represented him, failed to adequately question the couple.
“I had seventy-five questions to ask her and would have done a better job. He hardly asked any questions at all.”
There were numerous confrontations between Mrs Stafford and the concerned neighbours, with once incident video-recorded as Christie interfered with the erection of security fencing.
A section was sent crashing to the ground and Mrs Stafford turned her frustration on the resident, who was recording, yelling: “That’s what I said would happen if I let go. You stupid woman!”
She can also be heard telling Christie he was an “old man” in danger of a “heart attack” for physically blocking her plan to fence off the wall, pending demolition.
That resident, who has lived in the cul-de-sac for twenty-seven years and did not want to be identified, said: “It would have changed the whole community. We would have constantly had lorries up and down.
“We have children playing outside, the children are riding their bikes. I stand by Robin, who has become our spokesperson.”
The residents were eventually victorious and works ground to a halt, with the development and the couple’s marriage coming to an end and the property now back on the market for £999,950.
“There is a massive sense of relief, but until the property is sold and they are gone, none of us can really relax here,” added the woman. “The road is unsuitable for HGV’s, even cars can barely pass.”
There is even a road sign near the entrance to the close, which reads: ‘Unsuitable for HGVs’, however the couple planned for their large lorries and plant machinery to access their site via this route.
Another video captured Mrs Stafford furiously hacking at the wall with a small pick-axe, an incident witnessed by council leader of Richmond-upon-Thames, Gareth Roberts on August 13, 2024.
In his witness statement he confirmed planning permission was needed to demolish the wall and that he told Mrs Stafford she would be subject to planning enforcement and potential prosecution if she continued.
Christie even summonsed the councillor as a defence witness and he told the two-day trial: “The wall was in the conservation area and she had no permission to demolish this wall.
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| Robin Christie & Disputed Wall |
“She believed it was implicit she could demolish the wall, but that was not the case.
“She was agitated and angry and would stress her opinion that she was correct. It would have been a breach of planning if she demolished the wall.”
Another resident, who has lived in Hill House Drive for twelve years, said this week: “It has clearly affected life here and has especially affected my mental health due to the behaviour and bullying.
“That is a strong word, but who would rock up at a little cul-de-sac with bulldozers and just think they can do what they want? It is not acceptable.”
The woman added: “There have been fires lit on the site with toxic smoke coming across to us when their workmen were burning the contents of whatever was in that old building.”
Christie’s partner Naz, 66, has stood by Robin during his prosecution, explaining: “This is an amazing place to bring up children and the building works through here would have destroyed the neighbourhood.
“Her behaviour was atrocious and we felt we were being thrown out of our little cul-de-sac by people with money.”
In his letter to solicitor Mr Brooks, Christie said the lawyer’s wife “ploughed on like an angry Zimbabwean land grabber,” but this communication was judged to have been part of the harassment campaign.
So to was Christie’s attempt to prevent the erection of security fencing and Judge Evans described him as “arrogant and intimidating,” in his behaviour towards Mrs Stafford.
Trouble began on July 5, 2024 when Mrs Stafford began erecting security fencing on the residents’ side of the dividing brick wall, claiming her land extended into Hill House Drive.
Giving evidence behind a screen during the trial she said Christie and another neighbour approached. “They began objecting to me erecting fencing and they were also verbally abusive.
“They told me I didn’t have permission and that I was causing problems and being a nuisance. Robin Christie was inciting it.
“He was the instigator behind it and representing himself as some sort of legal authority and that he knew what he was talking about.
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| Julia Stafford & Samuel Brooks |
“He was falsely claiming that I didn’t own the land and had no right to erect the fencing and he followed me through a side gate onto the land I physically own.
“There were a lot of people verbally abusing me and I escaped the situation and removed myself to have some breathing space.
“The fencing was to protect people from the construction site and prevent them walking into an unsafe area.
“He was in my face and refusing to leave. I felt very threatened, violated and exposed and I kept being accused of criminal damage.”
She complained Christie followed her onto her property and the court viewed footage she recorded shouting: “Get off my land!”
Mrs Stafford added: “I am in full panic mode by now. Being followed onto my land is very threatening to me.
“When I went back to the fence it had been taken down. I put it back up and they took it down again.”
After the couple returned from a Greek family holiday she again began erecting the fencing on July 22.
“Robin Christie kept getting in my way, between the wall and the fence. He wanted to make it look like I was putting him in physical danger so it could be videoed as if I was assaulting him.
“Robin Christie was pushing it down as much as he could and I could not hold on anymore and I recall him ramming the fence into my legs.
“When the police came I told them I had been hurt. I had a cut on my foot and hand and the next day my legs were covered in bruises.”
Describing Christie’s behaviour during this video-recorded incident, Judge Evans said “He can be seen pushing against the complainant and in the scuffle her hands and legs were hurt.
“Getting into a tussle over fencing Mr Christie was completely losing perspective and behaving in a high-handed manner.”
Mr Brooks told the trial Christie tried to intimidate him by suggesting making a complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
“It was intended as a threat to coerce me to do what he wanted. It was absurd faux legalise.
“It was intended to damage my career and cause the loss of all my income. I thought it was hysterical nonsense.
“The gist was that my actions at the site implicated me in criminal damage and wider poor behaviour that made me liable to SRA sanction in the defendant’s view. The contents were utter bilge.”
Mrs Stafford claimed the dispute caused her PTSD and sleepless nights. “I’m pretty sure I had a panic attack. This was supposed to be a safe family home, but I was under constant threat from Robin Christie,” she told the trial.
This was followed by tit-for-tat reprisals with each party attaching their own bike locks to the security fencing, ending with Mrs Stafford using a metal cutter and borrowed axle grinder to cut out the whole section.
“Everyday I was verbally abused and it was like living in a cage,” she told the court. “I was accosted by Robin Christie and two women telling me if I removed the locks it was criminal damage.
“I realised I had a cage built around me and that was the most traumatic day.
“I burst into tears and called the police. I did not know what to do and it was the most dehumanising experience to be in a cage treated like an animal.”
She received a fixed penalty fine from the Met Police for cutting through one of Christie’s wire bike locks.
“Placing the bike and multiple locks is an act of harassment. Putting a lock on someone’s property and then watching them so he and the community can get their own way,” said Judge Evans.
“He was so busy championing the cause of the neighbours he lost perspective and pursued with increasing determination.”
Christie told the trial: “I grew into becoming the spokesperson for the residents. I was the calmest head and sought to seek solutions and had no personal issue with Ms Stafford.
“This was a community trying to overcome an issue with someone difficult to deal with.
“Ms Stafford was hacking away at the plants quite aggressively and was quite rude and abusive to people standing there, accusing them of bad things.
“The residents had looked after that area and paid for its maintenance, but Ms Stafford was in an aggressive mood and did not want to hear sense.
“She was walking up and down muttering something like ‘little stupid people’ and the fence was later moved during a storm because it was dangerous.
“The letter I sent to her husband was not threatening. I was asking him to be accountable as a solicitor and human being because we had to come to some solution.
“They had grabbed land and taken possession of land.
“I did not push the fence into her, I was trying to stabilise it and she banged the fence into me. The police then picked up the fence and threw it back over her wall.
“She came back an hour later and reinstated the side gate, which she called a cage when giving evidence. She’s put the fence on land she does not own.
“The fence was eight feet into our land. This was a trespass.”
This week Christie stuck to that same opinion: “It was a land grab, definitely a land grab. They were coming to take land away.”
The first time he discovered there was the prospect of a criminal prosecution was when a police officer came to his door, asking for a chat at Kingston Police Station.
“This officer made no investigation whatsoever even though I gave him a twenty-page dossier with statements from the residents about how Mrs Stafford’s behaviour had impacted them, but he did not follow-up.”
