Former Town Councillor Acquitted!
Former town
councillor Keith Greenwell wins wrongful arrest from three officers
of Thames Valley Police.
Keith Greenwell returned to court to win wrongful arrest on the part of three officers from TVP.
He was acquitted with costs
against the police
Read
the full original story reproduced from chippingnorton.net
COUNCILLOR GREENWELL IS FINED AFTER ROW WITH
NEIGHBOUR
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A Chipping Norton Town
Councillor has been fined after a neighbourhood dispute turned sour. Keith
Greenwell Town Councillor- was fined after resisting arrest when police
visited his house to investigate a public order incident on July 12th 2010.
In a hearing last Thursday
Caroline Oakley, prosecuting, told Banbury Magistrates how Mr Greenwell was
having an ongoing dispute about a piece of land between his house and a
neighbouring property. The land which leads out to a garage and shed is used
by neighbours and is covered by a covenant which states it can only be accessed
on foot rather than by car. When Mr Greenwell saw his neighbour drive across
the land he told her to stop driving, used abusive language towards her and
banged on her vehicle.
The court viewed a video of a
hidden police camera showing officers arriving at Mr Greenwell's house on
July 22nd. When questioned about the earlier incident he closed the door and
refused to be arrested. Once police had finally got inside Mr Greenwell's
house and got him outside, he used threatening and abusive language to the officers
on duty.
Matthew Correy, defending,
said:" My client has entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity
today that is available for him to do so. We have seen from the videos that
the police were quite heavy-handed with Mr Greenwell and he did suffer some
fairly bad injuries, including injuries to his head and wrist. This
neighbourhood dispute has been ongoing for some time and he was a man at the
end of his tether so his behaviour was out of character" Mr Correy added
that Mr Greenwell's vehicle was also damaged by the neighbour, who was using
the concrete area to gain access to the garage after carrying out building
work on their property. When he was ignored by the neighbour, the court was
told four calls made by to the police about his car being damaged were not
followed up.
Concluding the hearing,
chairman of the bench, Malcolm Farley said: "We have been considering
two matters here today, both of which you have pleaded guilty to. We have
taken into account your early guilty plea and the fine we are imposing is
half
the costs the Prosecution
Service have asked for" Mr Greenwell was fined a total of £520, which
included £335 for the public order offence and £150 for obstructing a police
officer in their duty. An earlier charge of assault had been dropped.
Some more background from Keith
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Here’s some background to my fine
last week which I hope is useful. I live in a row of four cottages at
Southcombe. . My house is at the end - No 1. At the side of my house is a
piece of land with a drive leading to my garage and some other outbuildings.
There is also an area of hard standing. Cottage No 2 owns one of the
outbuildings and some hard standing. However No 2 has no right of vehicle
access to either the outbuilding or the hard standing. They only have access
on foot. This is clearly stated in the deeds and was clear when the present
owners of No 2 bought the house four years ago. Daft but typical in
situations where farm cottages are sold off over a period of time and
different restrictions are introduced into conveyances.
From the moment they moved in No2
residents continually ignored the restrictive covenant and drove across the
area over which they have a right to pedestrian access. Having taken legal
advice we were told that we must challenge them at every opportunity when
they did this in order to prevent an easement being created. We started doing
this. I then had a visit from a constable from Witney because the woman at
No2 had complained to the police about harassment. I explained the circumstances
and TVP eventually took no further action. The breaches of the covenant in
the deeds continued and we carried on making challenges and also engaged a
solicitor to start proceedings against No 2.
In individual incidents my car
window was smashed and the complete length of my car was gouged by a
screwdriver. I had strong grounds for believing that my neighbour was
involved . In the first case the responsibility was admitted and the damage
paid for. In the second case the police gave me a crime number and refused to
get involved.
We continued to challenge the
residents of No 2 each time we saw them across the to which they only had a
right to pedestrian access. On one occasion my wife and I were walking back
from the garden when the woman got into her car, an old black VW Golf. As we
were walking across she drove at me and hit me. My wife reported the incident
to the police. We had a visit a week or so later from a couple of officers
who took statements. We were eventually told they were taking no action
It would be tedious to describe any
more of the many many incidents which followed – suffice it to say that our
life became hell.. I will now turn to what happened on July 12th.
This is the incident which led to my court appearance when I was charged with
abusive behaviour towards the police. This incident occurred when my car was
once again scratched down the full length of one side. It was fine when I
parked at about 10.30PM but when I went to use it at 08.30 the next morning
it had been vandalised I had seen the woman from No 2 walk down the side of
it earlier that morning. I rang TVP and was told they would take no action as
I had not actually seen her scratch the car. Shortly after this I confronted
the man at No 2 and asked him to come and look at the damage that had been
done. As was his usual practice he just stood and said nothing, My wife
Janette who was across on the garden with the dogs walked back and said leave
it and go into the house which I did.
Ten days later on July 25th two
Constables and a PCSO turned up in two cars at my back door and announced
that they had come to arrest me for an alleged assault on the man next door.
I told them that they had got it wrong and it was him that they should be
arresting.. At this they became aggressive, and I was forced to the ground
and beaten up by the two PCs, arrested and taken to Banbury. It was clear to
me that the constables had come looking for trouble. Why else would they need
two PC’s and a PCSO plus a police van on hand to take me to the police station.
In the past we have attempted to
reach an amicable settlement with the owner of No 2 but they have just
ignored the correspondence from our solicitors while continuing to repeatedly
breach the covenant. What mystifies us is how the police could repeatedly
ignore the many reports and complaints we made and refuse to take any action.
Yet in the case of the July 12th incident they accepted an
unsubstantiated account from the residents of No 2 and chose to proceed
directly to my arrest . They should surely not have been surprised that they
met some resistance to this high-handed course of action.
This is how Keith looked when he
got back from his police interview in Banbury. ED
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