Taking The P***?: Perfumer Harassed By Neighbour's Patio Urine Pour

"Weapon Of Mass Destruction": Mackinlay

A perfumer with a “trained nose” was tormented by her elderly next-door neighbour, who repeatedly threw urine into the basement patio of her £5m Chelsea family home, a court heard.

Anastasia De Brauwere Brozler, 57, spent months trying to find the cause of the “absolutely disgusting” odour, which negatively effected her business as she felt her perfume oils were contaminated.

At City of London Magistrates’ Court neighbour Janine Mackinlay, 81, of Cheltenham Terrace was convicted of harassing Anastasia and her lawyer husband Alain De Brauwere, 60, between September 1, last year and February 10.

The widow, who earns £7,000 per-month from commercial rents, was also convicted of causing criminal damage to the couple’s property and ordered to pay £2,922 compensation for the clean-up.

The neighbours reside at the end of the Grade II-listed terrace, which overlooks the Duke of York grounds near Sloane Square and Mackinlay’s property is currently on the market for £4.75m.

“When the pungent smell first first blew into the kitchen we thought it came from sewage and brought in someone to check,” Austrian-born mother-of-two Anastasia told the trial.

She has corporate and private clients, who range from 'princes, ballerinas, actors and politicians' and runs a perfume school and is the boss of Creative Perfumers London Ltd.

“Then the gasman said it was urine and we thought: ‘Gosh. There must be a leakage in one of our lavatories.’

“In December it was horrific and we put the Christmas tree in the patio for a more elegant touch and had some professionals clean that area.

“It was very unpleasant and it did not cross my mind at all it would be deliberately thrown onto the patio,” she told the court. “It felt really unhealthy to have food stored in the fridge.

“Every time you opened the door this pungent smell of urine would enter the house and we could not open our window. There is also a ventilator that is permanently open that drew in the smell.

“Every time we heard a splash we wrote it down and found out the cause when my husband saw the neighbour and then we asked the Cheltenham Residents Association to access the CCTV.

“We could see our neighbour on the CCTV regularly throwing, sometimes three times a day, disgusting urine onto our patio.

Odour: Anastasia De Brauwere Brozler & Alain De Brauwere

“We would always hear ‘splash, splash’ and it accumulated and really stunk down there. The walls were marked with yellow stains and my fresh flowers literally died.

“It had an impact on my children. We couldn’t have breakfast, lunch or dinner in the kitchen and it impacted me.

“I have a trained nose. I am a perfumer that works from home and I know I’m foreign and that is a big problem for our neighbour, that we are foreign.”

She denied a defence suggestion Mackinlay was aiming for her own plant pots and innocently missed. “She wasn’t aiming at her pots, it is easy to aim at a plant pot.

“My husband went to her house with goodwill, but she screamed that we should go to hell and go back to our own country.

“We have paid many, many people to reduce this unbelievable smell,” Anastasia told the magistrates. “She is extremely angry to me and verbally abusive to me and my children.

“We were surrounded by a lack of oxygen and I had to put scented candles everywhere and plants outside. We could not use the kitchen and I could not work there even though I need running water.”

She said her daughters, aged 18 years-old and 13 years-old, had suffered. “We had serious concerns about our children’s health, my youngest daughter was coughing and we were physically sick.

“We smelled urine even morning. It was disgusting, absolutely disgusting.”

Her Dutch-born husband Alain, a Harvard Law School graduate, who advises City financial institutions, told the trial: “I saw next-door opening and the splash happened that I heard before.

Scent Of Crime: Mackinlay Poured Urine Into Basement Patio

“I ran up the basement stairs and it was clearly wet. It was clearly urine and I heard the door closing of my neighbour’s house.

“I climbed over the fence and rang the doorbell and knocked, but there was no reaction and I called the police.

“My wife has a very sensitive nose and for various reasons this has destroyed our well-being.

“Why did it happen? What had we done to somebody to cause this?” he asked. “I felt almost harassed.”

Mackinlay complained the police came to her door at 10.00pm and she was later questioned at Hammersmith Police Station after an officer pushed their ID through her letterbox.

She did not deny throwing urine from a plastic jug out of her front door, but insisted it was not aimed at her next-door neighbours and she did not intend any harassment.

“I have an arthritic knee and a collapsed vertebra and I cannot always get upstairs or downstairs to the toilet due to mobility issues,” she told the trial. 

Holding up the jug and referring to her belief the De Brauwere’s exaggerated the urine damage she announced to the magistrates: “This is the weapon of mass destruction.

“I wee in it and I dispose of it. I’m afraid to say I throw it out the front door.

“There is no malice. In my eighty-one years on earth I have never damaged anyone’s property and as a founding member of the Residents Association I feel I am a respected person in the area.”

Supported in court by her son and daughter Mackinlay added: “It is not very ladylike, I understand that and I like to think I am a bit more sophisticated.”

Regarding the estimate of damage she said: “That is laughable. No way is it thousands of pounds worth of damage, no way. I am surprised they are allowed to lie under oath, it was a whole lot of lies.”

Bench Chairman Jeffrey Manton announced: “These matters were harassment of the individuals and the criminal damage was reckless. This has been deeply distressing to the people living next door.”

Mackinlay was conditionally discharged for twelve months on the two harassment counts and ordered to pay £620 costs and a £26 surcharge.

She was also made subject to a twelve-month restraining order, prohibiting contact with the De Brauwere family.

Afterwards Alain said: “I don’t see it as a victory. It is a very sad day.”