This sort of thing shames Britain.
All these people had plenty of money and resources; yet were so bitter and negative than rather than share their resources they would go to Court..
t had a ball and feet, but was it football?
Maev Kennedy
Thursday November 23, 2006
The Guardian
There was certainly a football, and four feet attached to one pair of 46-year-old and one pair of five-year-old legs. But whether what happened next was “football” has taken two years of legal argument, gone all the way to the high court, and run up the price of a small stadium in costs.
The dispute began when a father and son had kickabouts in the back garden. Unfortunately the pitch was the large private gardens shared by the residents of Elgin Crescent, a sweep of millionaires’ houses in Kensington, some of the most expensive real estate in London.
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Some might be charmed that Christopher Fleming-Brown, a high-flying banker, found time to play ball with his son, when many of his peers keep track of their offspring by emails from the nanny.
However, as Paula Lawton, a neighbour in the crescent, saw it, he was turning the garden into “a public recreation ground”, in clear breach of the 1863 Town Gardens Protection Act.
Last year, West London magistrates court dismissed the private prosecution, after consulting the Oxford Dictionary and ruling that since football was defined as “any number of forms of team game involving kicking a ball”, Mr Fleming-Brown and his son did not qualify as teams, and therefore were not playing football. The magistrates also ruled the game did not constitute acts that might damage trees, shrubs and flowers, barred in a separate bylaw.
Ms Lawton yesterday challenged their ruling in the high court, where the case was heard by two senior judges, with Ian Glen QC representing Mr Fleming-Brown. The banker said later he needed such high-powered representation because if convicted he might have been barred from visiting the US on business.
Lord Justice Waller, sitting with Mr Justice Treacy, said the magistrates had taken too narrow a definition. “By any common-sensical, natural interpretation, the respondent and his son were playing football or a similar game.”
However they refused to order a re-trial, saying it would be “inappropriate” – particularly since the bylaws have now been amended to allow parent and child ball games – and that Mr Fleming-Brown’s acquittal should stand.
Ms Lawton, although greatly relieved when the judges ruled she would not have to pay the “harrowing” costs, was outraged. “Citizens of this country will be absolutely appalled,” she said.
