NOoooBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition… or police raids over garden gnomes.
A man vowed to keep a glowing garden gnome on display today in defiance of a police notice. Gordon MacKillop even faces possible prosecution over the offending ornament.
He was woken in the night by two police officers who warned him that the solar-powered gnome, dressed in full police uniform, was offensive to his neighbours.
They served him with a notice under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 for “placing a garden gnome with intent to cause harassment to Mr John McLean”.
The notice, issued on August 30, also accuses Mr MacKillop of intimidating potential buyers of former policeman Mr McLean’s £209,000 cottage in Treovis, near Liskeard, Cornwall. It warns the 46-year-old that he could be arrested and prosecuted.
“When you hear a knock at the door at quarter to midnight you don’t expect to be served with that,” said Mr MacKillop, a marine surveyor at Devonport Dockyard.
Personally, someone who could be intimidated by a garden gnome into not buying a house is not someone I’d want as a neighbor. I think this guy is doing a public service with his gnome.
This is like all those fancy upper class “communities” you find near golf courses. Can’t have anything in your yard unless it is pre-approved.
Ok. What is the rest of this story? It is so demeaning to post one third of the information, just to try to get people indignant. What is REALLY going on between these two neighbors?
And the source of this story is …. oh ya, the Daily Mail, that pinnacle of reliable news sources, the newspaper which has, since 1896 done its best to scare the UK into a fascist state. Indeed, maybe you could change that graphic to “News from the Fascist Newspaper in the Support of a Fascists UK”
agree with #2, something is missing from this story.
Couldn’t he then sue the police for wearing the same attire as his gnome? Hey Protection from Harassment right?
foggy agree with #2, something is missing from this story.
That is what the Daily Mail is famous for: inflammatory headlines, that make mean and bitter old people shake their heads and buy another CCTV camera to project their homes from fantastic threats of foreign gypsies, young hoodlums, and armed Lesbians.
1. STANDARD times to deliver warrants, is Business hours and in the mail.
2. ANY TIME past 8pm ISNT civil Law, its punitive and a Grudge.
3. These, lights cant be seen from MILES away. And dont cover a large area with light. they are mostly to indicate a location. there might be 2 LEDs for light in them. Its not a Blaring light shining in everyones WINDOWS..You have to know its there only at night and WHERE its at.
4. How many people are up at 12am and looking out at peoples ornaments?
Last updated at 15:33 09 September 2006
God Bless the Cornish… the place where the art of family feuding has not been lost.
(I live in Devon which neighbours on Cornwall. We are infinitely more urbane and sophisticated that Cornwall will ever be. And we make better Cider.)
I agree. If they guy had a ten foot tall nude on his lawn paint flesh color then you can complain. A garden gnome. Mind your own business.
I’ll have a pint of scrumpy and drink to that!
I wouldn’t mess with John McClane. I think this conflict will die hard.
“former policeman Mr McLean’s £209,000 cottage ”
COTTAGE??
Cottage????
Can anyone in the USA find a police officer that OWNS a $400,000+ home??
I can understand WHY he is getting rid of it, as the tax would kill you.
Cottage? what is this? A small-ish 2 story HOUSE, with ALOT of property around it??
This is a mini mansion in the USA.
DCPHILL: I’ll have a pint of scrumpy and drink to that!
😀
ECA: Can anyone in the USA find a police officer that OWNS a $400,000+ home??
Welcome to the British property market… You don’t find any houses, anywhere in the UK for less than that.
In the UK a cottage is just an old house that farm workers used to live in. Usually they are small and dank (I live in a cottage, well it used to be two cottages … and it is small and dank) and have thatched roofs (although not always).
The last cottage I saw for sale for £200,000 had two stories, four small bedrooms and had electricity in the kitchen and main room and one of the bedrooms. The rest of the house was, surprisingly, still plumbed in for oil lamps (although they hadn’t been used in a long time). It had a small garden (10 foot square or so), the walls were so wet that the plaster was bulging, and the ceiling over the group floor swooped down in the middle making the middle of the ceiling about a foot shorter that the sides.
14,
Then you are getting as bad as Japan.
I would look into Running a radiator system. DRY HEAT.. and implant it in the walls. you would LOVE it.