A father-of-two who was attacked during a violent break-in at his home has been told he could face prison if he doesn’t remove a £40k security gate.
Philip Stafford, 60, was attacked after confronting two men – one allegedly armed with a knife – breaking into an outbuilding at his grand 19th Century villa in the seaside town of Torquay, Devon.
Despite suffering a head injury, the former teacher pinned down the man for 20 minutes until police arrived.
Officers advised he build a security fence to protect his property and Mr Stafford spent £40k on the gate, wall and a team of engineers and consultants.
But months after the gate was erected he says a ‘very aggressive’ planning official from Torbay Council approached him and ordered him to remove the gate or face prosecution.
Mr Stafford told : ‘They [the council] are threatening to throw me in jail if I don’t take the gate down.
‘It’s bullying but I won’t give in because it is my human right to protect myself and my family.’
Mr Stafford said the attack in 2017 was the culmination of a series of crimes on his property since an oak tree destroyed a pillar holding up the previous gate.
The homeowner – who inherited the house from his father in 2016 – said: ‘I’d been up all night clearing and sorting the house after my father had died.
‘Around 8am I was alerted by an alarm in the carpark and when I opened the front door I was shocked to witness a man kicking in the side wooden garage door.
‘His mood was up and down, very erratic. I escorted him down the drive after calling 999 and I was still on the phone to the police.
‘Suddenly he attacked me, knocking my phone to the ground. A desperate fight ensued. He was manic, three times as strong as normal and feeling no pain.
‘I am lucky I was very very fit at the time, if I hadn’t been I would have been stabbed.’
The teenager was later arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary but no further action was taken against him or his accomplice due to lack of evidence.
Following the incident and other criminal damage, including including thugs vandalising his late father’s beloved Volvo estate car, breaking into his garage and shed, smashing up security cameras and lights and discarding used needles in the garden, police advised him to reinstate the gate and put up fencing to secure the property.
Mr Stafford initially built a temporary gate further up his drive but when the remains of a council-owned oak tree recently fell – crushing a neighbour’s car – he rebuilt the pillar and installed a new metal gate and fence.
The metal gate itself cost him around £10,000, but with the wall as well as a structural engineer and planning consultant the total bill came to a staggering £40k.
Council chiefs have since served him with an enforcement notice and warned he faces having the gate forcibly removed by bailiffs, having a charge placed on the property preventing him from selling and even being sent to prison because the house is in a conservation area and he didn’t have permission to re-install the gate.
He has applied for retrospective permission for the gate – an application that was supported by several neighbours – but this was opposed by the council.
‘The council has gone out of their way to make it difficult for me,’ he said.
‘They are threatening to throw me in jail if I don’t take the gate down. It’s bullying but I won’t give in because it is my human right to protect myself and my family.
‘It feels like they are saying you can’t wear a crash helmet while riding a motorbike.’
This isn’t the first time somebody has faced jail over a planning dispute.
In June 2021 Graham Wildin was prosecuted for failing to comply with an enforcement order after building ‘Britain’s biggest man cave’.
The judge sentenced him to six weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, on the condition that the building be permanently stripped and decommissioned within 18 weeks.
Mr Wildin still did not comply with the injunction and was ultimately sentenced to six weeks in prison in August 2022. Demolition work recently began on the building.
A spokesman for Torbay Council said: ‘We carried out an investigation following complaints about new entrance gates in this location, and it was decided that a breach of planning control had taken place.
‘We are unable to comment on the details of an ongoing enforcement investigation, but as part of the process we have attempted to engage with the property owner with a view to resolving the outstanding planning matters.
‘The matter of the entrance gates remains unresolved, so authorisation for further enforcement action has been granted to remedy the breach of planning control.
‘However, we acknowledge that the property owner has submitted a retrospective planning application in an attempt to resolve the outstanding planning matters.
‘Therefore any further enforcement action is on hold pending the outcome of the current planning application. We will reconsider our position once the outcome of the application is known.’
A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said: ‘Police were called on the evening of 18 July 2017 after a report of two males acting suspiciously outside an address in Torquay.
‘A male teenager had been detained and was arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary.
‘It was later reported that a socket set and spanners had been taken from the garage at the address.
‘A second boy was later traced and spoken with in connection to the incident.
‘Both teenagers were subsequently released with no further action due to insufficient evidence to proceed with the investigation at the time. However, if further evidence comes to light the incident will be re-visited.’