Shepherdess, 80, left with massive court bill after losing gate fight over neighbour’s reversing Land Rover
A £90m hotel construction boss has won a neighborly dispute with an 80-year-old shepherdess after she complained that his wife’s door was interfering with him as he drove his Land Rover out of his £900,000 farmhouse.
Peter Leonard, 42, and his wife Kelly, 46, sued eight-year-old Charolais sheep breeder Muriel Whiston for six years after accusing her of being “malicious and aggressive” towards visitors and delivery drivers at their four-bedroom 33-acre home in Shropshire.
The couple, who also run a sanctuary for rescued rabbits on their property, clashed with Mrs Whiston, who installed new gates along the common path at the entrance to her small neighboring farm and a sign insisting they be kept closed “at all times” for the sake of her sheep.
Mr and Mrs Leonard said the gate interfered with their right of way over part of the track on their property, prevented delivery drivers from using the area beyond the gate to turn their vehicles, and prevented Ms Leonard from reversing the Land Rover Defender 130 out of the yard, forcing her to “perform a multi-point turning maneuver to point in the correct direction”.
They sued, asking Judge Sarah Watson at Birmingham District Court to force her shepherds to remove their gate and sign, saying that, together with his “abusive” behaviour, they constituted an “unreasonable interference” with their right of way.
Ms Whiston denied interference with the right of way and insisted she had the right to “politely” tell delivery drivers and other visitors that the gate should only be opened when necessary and closed afterwards.
He also challenged his neighbors to keep the door to their barn closed to prevent the rescued animals from scattering and mixing with the herd.
The judge, ruling in September 2024, said Ms Whiston’s sign to keep the door closed was unreasonable and should be changed, but did not find that her neighbours’ behavior towards their visitors was “abusive” or that the door should be removed.
The judge also rejected Ms Whiston’s injunction to force her neighbors to keep the door of the old milking parlor where the rescue animals were kept closed, despite commenting that doing so was “unneighbourly”.
However, when none of the neighbors were happy with this outcome, the fight escalated further when both sides appealed parts of the decision to the Supreme Court.
Now Mr Justice Michael Green has dismissed both parties’ appeals to the county court decision and upheld the decision that the old shepherdess must pay the huge legal costs of the case; It will probably reach six figures.
“It is extremely regrettable that this matter has not been resolved out of court and that so much time and money has been spent on this dispute, disproportionate to the issues at stake,” he said.
The court heard Ms Whiston’s farm and the Leonards’ land had been in her family since Ms Whiston was born.
The property was split in two in 1996 and Mrs Whiston moved to her own land on the farm, a bungalow at Lower Fenemere Farm, Baschurch, to raise her sheep.
The main farmhouse, some outbuildings and 33 acres of land were sold.
Mr Leonard, a director of MM Capital, a Dublin-based property development company focused on hotel construction that he says has invested around £90 million in projects over the past decade, bought the other part of the property, Lower Fenemere Court, in 2017 for around £900,000. He and his wife are associated with several other businesses, including schools for disabled children.
The court heard that when the couple moved in there was already a gate across the road to stop Mrs Whiston’s sheep escaping, but it was usually open unless the flock was in the area at the front of her bungalow.
The neighbors got along well until the Covid outbreak in 2020; they had clashed via text; The couple was complaining that Mrs. Whiston had never opened the door after their sheep had left for the fields.
“The challenges surveyors say they face with the closure of double doors are: [that] Larger vehicles, such as Ms. Leonard’s Land Rover Defender 130, must engage in a multi-point turning maneuver to point in the correct direction to proceed down the track… using their preferred method of reversing. This may need to be endured many times during the day.
“Delivery drivers will either have to make multi-point turns on hard ground or back dangerously across the track, which they do very slowly, thus causing further obstacles.”
This followed a period when the shepherdess “tried to discuss the idea of installing a new door in a different location which she thought would not be too disruptive to Mr and Mrs Leonard”, but eventually “went ahead and erected a new door” in August 2020.
The new gate, along with a sign reading “Livestock Farming. Please keep gate closed at all times”, set off the neighbors’ battle in earnest, and although it was replaced with a new set of double gates further back down the road in 2021, the fight ended in court.
In 2024, the judge ordered that the gates could remain, but the sign read: “Lower Fenemere Farm and Lower Fenemere Courtyard Return. Please close the gate after use to prevent farm animals from escaping.” It also prohibited the shepherd or his staff from telling delivery drivers or other visitors not to use the road beyond the gate.
In the High Court, the applicant challenged the finding that there had been a “significant interference” with the neighboring couple’s right of way, pointing out that he had not been found to have been “abusive” to visitors.
But dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice Green said: “The judge actually ruled in Ms Whiston’s favor on the issue of whether she was an abuser or aggressor, but ultimately concluded that she ‘could be outspoken by her own admission… She did not mince words’.
“The judge considered that although he was not abusive, he had taken a ‘firm and direct approach’ and that it ultimately mattered little whether the appellant had been abusive or acted in a way that discouraged visitors from using the product. [the area beyond the gates] to translate.
“Both have the same effect as amounting to significant interference and he has been penalized for any similar conduct in the future.”
He also dismissed an objection that the door to the barn where the rescue rabbits were kept was left open, and rejected Mr and Mrs Leonard’s cross-objection that the doors were left open at all times.
“The surveyors have four young children and use the yard as a garden for their children to play in, as well as a containment area and parking space for their dogs and other animals,” he said.
“Mrs Leonard uses the old milking shed, with the stable door on the other side, to house rescue animals such as rabbits. Children with learning disabilities who enjoy contact with such animals visit here once a week.”
But he said the district court judge ruled against forcing Ms Whiston to leave the gates open on the grounds that she “had the right to keep them open” to keep her sheep inside and other animals out.
“Having found that the double doors were not such as to constitute a significant interference with the right of way, it was sufficient to address the interference he found by requiring the sign to be replaced and granting an injunction regarding Ms Whiston’s conduct,” the judge said.
Finally, and crucially, he rejected Ms Whiston’s appeal to cover the costs of the case, saying that although they had lost on some issues, the couple were “clear winners in this case”.
“It is extremely regrettable that this matter has not been resolved out of court and that so much time and money has been spent on this dispute, disproportionate to the issues at stake,” he said.
“In saying this, I am aware that there is no easy solution to the problems that arise regarding the fair and reasonable operation and use of the right of way.
“I further understand that the parties have made a number of – ultimately unsuccessful – efforts to resolve this dispute on terms satisfactory to both.”
Mr Justice Green did not specify the total cost of the four-day hearing and Supreme Court appeal, but it is likely to be a six-figure sum.
