BAILII is celebrating 24 years of free online access to the law! Would you consider making a contribution?
No donation is too small. If every visitor before 31 December gives just £1, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing free access to the law.
Thank you very much for your support!
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] | ||
England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions |
||
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions >> Gallagher v Castle Vale Action Trust Ltd [2001] EWCA Civ 944 (23 February 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2001/944.html Cite as: [2001] EWCA Civ 944, (2001) 33 HLR 72 |
[New search] [Printable RTF version] [Help]
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM BIRMINGHAM COUNTY COURT
(MR RECORDER CLEARY)
Strand London WC2 Friday, 23rd February 2001 |
||
B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE SEDLEY
and
MR JUSTICE BLACKBURNE
____________________
SUSAN GALLAGHER | Claimant/Respondent | |
- v - | ||
CASTLE VALE ACTION TRUST LIMITED | Defendants/Appellant |
____________________
Smith Bernal Reporting Limited
190 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2AG
Telephone No: 020 7421 4040
Fax No: 020 7831 8838
Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
MR B MCGUIRE (instructed by Anthony Collins Solicitors, Birmingham B2 5PG) appeared on behalf of the Defendants
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
"The tenant or a person residing in or visiting the dwelling house -
(a) has been guilty of conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to a person residing, visiting or otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the locality, or
(b) has been convicted of
(i) using the dwelling house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes;
(ii) an arrestable offence committed in or in the locality of the dwelling house."
"On the making of an order for possession of such a dwelling house on any of those grounds
- and those are the grounds referred to in Part 3 of Schedule 2 -
"or at any time before the execution of such an order the court may
(a) stay or suspend the execution of the order, or
(b) postpone the date of possession for such period or periods as the court thinks fit."
"Essentially, the Claimant's case comes down to this. While the tenants in each case might be unimpeachable as individuals, they appear either incapable of recognising or unable to accept that one or more of their children are creating a grave nuisance on the estate, categorised as antisocial behaviour and, even if they do recognise that, they are quite unable to control and prevent it. For the benefit of the other tenants, the Claimant wishes to be rid of these families."
"Mrs Gallagher lives at 25, Worthy Down Walk. She has a daughter, Sarah (20) and, for the purpose of this case, two sons, Rory, who lives away from home, and Richard, who has, within the last month, been sentenced to a term of two and a half years' imprisonment. In her statement she asserts that Richard left home in 1992. There is, however, another presence in her house, that of Christopher Ansell, whom we have already come across."
"This young man is the boyfriend of Mrs Gallagher's daughter, Sarah. Since being ejected from his mother's home on Cadbury Drive Christopher has been living with Sarah's mother at Worthy Down Walk.
Convictions.
The offences which Christopher Ansell has committed have already been chronicled in this case against his mother."
"Sarah Gallagher has the following convictions recorded against her."
"Complaints, as I have indicated, continue to come into the HAT since these proceedings commenced.
The convictions and many other examples of antisocial behaviour by Christopher are well known to Sarah and her mother. Whereas they have driven Mrs Gallagher to distraction to the extent that she now has nothing to say about them since Christopher will simply not listen to her without abusing her or ignore her, Sarah, however, is still very close to him. One of the issues in the case against Mrs Gallagher is whether or not Christopher still makes his home with her. Certainly in her statement of October this year at page 308 Mrs Gallagher says, 'I live at the house with my daughter and her boyfriend Christopher.'
As I have said before, Christopher has elected not to play any part of these proceedings, notwithstanding his closeness to Sarah, who herself gave evidence. Indeed, the night before Sarah gave evidence on 27th November this year Christopher spent the night at her mother's home and was given a meal by her. On being challenged Mrs Gallagher indicated that she wanted to keep the peace, and he was, and is after all, close to her daughter; and that of course is the problem, because I find that, quite apart from his criminality, Christopher's behaviour is thoroughly antisocial and a dreadful nuisance in the locality, and I am quite satisfied that, when he wishes to, he visits and stays at the Gallagher house.
Unhappily, Sarah Gallagher is herself no angel. She has a conviction for handling stolen goods, or a caution for it, goods stolen in fact by Christopher, and frankly admits that she has been abusive to another tenant, Don Bent, and that she mingles with a group or groups of people who make such a dreadful noise outside number 25 at all hours of the evening and night and that she shares Christopher's habit of using loud and thoroughly disgusting and unpleasant language.
Number 25 is in fact a property with some fairly unpleasant problems. As often as once a week various windows in the property would be smashed over a period of some months some time ago. It has had certainly one unwelcome visitor who has made various specific threats against the occupants and Christopher has been threatened in a knife incident. Indeed, Mrs Gallagher cheerfully admitted that the attacks on the house were attacks aimed in fact at her, and she also readily admitted that there is significant noise and extremely unpleasant language coming from her home which would be unpleasant for the neighbours. She amused the other Defendants sitting in the court when she criticised in very unpleasant terms her neighbours for being foolish enough to listen to the language coming out of her home. The expression she used was 'her with the cauliflower ears next door'.
She saw no particular discomfort when questioned about her daughter's free use of the word 'cunt' as she argued at some volume with Christopher, an argument which neighbours were quite unable to avoid hearing.
There is no doubt that the gatherings outside her home of rowdy young people and of motor vehicles being examined and revved in the late hours are gatherings which are brought about by the presence of her home and her family. The evidence of the neighbour and of the distress that is being caused to this latter family is overwhelming. The court has seen videos of the cars and vans parked outside the property and it is perfectly clear that life for the neighbours must be made quite intolerable by the activities both immediately outside the house but also within it. It is not, as counsel for the Gallaghers suggested, a difference in lifestyle; it is intolerable."
"One perhaps might feel some sympathy for Mrs Gallagher. She has presented a doctor's report to the court which perhaps should be considered when considering the matter of reasonableness, and one cannot but feel some sympathy for the manner in which she was left by her husband to cope with her growing children. However, sympathy arising out of that act of desertion and compassion for a lady who simply cannot control any of her children do not overcome the fact that there is no doubt in my mind that the Claimant makes out its case against her on the basis of the convictions of Sarah, an occupant, the convictions of Christopher, a regular visitor to and sometime occupant of the property, and nuisance and breach of the contractual terms of the tenancy."
"You are responsible for the behaviour of every person living in or visiting your home including children, other family members, visitors, guests, friends, relatives, lodgers, sub-tenants etc. You are responsible for them in your home, on surrounding land, in communal areas, (entrance halls, stairs, lifts, landings etc.), in the neighbourhood around your home and on the estate.
You and they must not take any action intended to interfere with the peace and quiet enjoyment of their homes by your neighbours and residents of the estate.
You and they must not cause nuisance, annoyance or disturbance to any other person on the estate including people living in the immediate vicinity of the property, residents anywhere on the estate who are not neighbours (regardless of whether they are Trust tenants), private tenants or owner occupiers and people using local facilities, shops, footpaths and amenity areas etc."
"Gallagher; I am satisfied that Mrs Gallagher has no intention of keeping Christopher Ansell from her door. He was at home on Friday of this week and over one of the nights earlier that week by her permission, receiving both bed and board. He is, as she frankly accepts, her daughter's boyfriend and, even on that neutral basis, she sees no reason to keep him from her house. Sarah, while by no means as tainted an individual as her boyfriend, seems oblivious to his malign influence and is obviously besotted by him. Indeed, I have heard and found that she allows that influence to dictate her own language and her own behaviour. In addition, Mrs Gallagher, we discover, is engaged to be married and has another property to go to. I adopt the responses to each of the factors set out on page 12 of the Claimant's submission. An order will be made and I will need to hear addresses on how soon it will take this lady to find alternative accommodation."
"An order will be made and I will need to hear addresses on how soon it would take this lady to find alternative accommodation."
"So far as it is possible to do so, primary legislation and subordinate legislation must be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with the Convention rights."
"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There should be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."
"I will, as I have said, consider each family individually and establish whether or not it would be reasonable to order possession or to impose a suspended order. This is a matter, as I have said, of discretion."