A FIVE-bedroom Victorian house owned by a Paris-based Irish diplomat, Ms Anne Webster, and her husband, Mr Gerard Clarke, is in grave danger of being destroyed by deliberate and systematic vandalism, a judge said yesterday.
Food leftovers were stuck to the ceilings and walls while flooding from the bathroom had damaged decorative plasterwork, the court heard.
Ms Webster, who holds the diplomatic rank of counsellor, and Mr Clarke obtained orders in the Circuit Civil Court granting them immediate possession of 3 Sunbury Gardens, Dartry, Dublin, from a Cork man, Mr John Nolan, and a Ms Karen Leahy.
Judge Liam Devally heard that the couple had left behind them a trail of unpaid rents amounting to thousands of pounds for upmarket properties. One of the houses had been turned into a massage parlour, and nearly all of them had suffered serious damage.
Ms Carol O'Farrell, counsel for Ms Webster, of Rue Pergolese, Paris, and Mr Clarke, told the court that repairs to a house on Pembroke Road, Dublin, had cost £40,000. A house on Rathgar Road, Dublin, had been badly damaged.
Ms Webster said in an affidavit that their property had been seriously damaged by overspills from baths and wash-hand basins which had destroyed period lath-and-plaster ceilings and cornices. Mr Nolan had refused to allow access to experts and tradesmen to inspect and repair the damage.
Mr Nolan owed more than £7,000 on the Dartry property he rented at almost £1,500 a month. He had left the house towards the end of last year but Ms Leahy, who had no lawful tenancy, had remained on as a trespasser.
Garda John Ford said he had visited 3 Sunbury Gardens last December. Glass from damaged pictures was strewn on floors. There was cutlery and a lot of broken delph on the floors and leftovers of food were stuck to the ceilings and walls. He said a first-floor bathroom in the three-storey house was flooded and water was seeping down through the ceilings to the ground floors.
Judge Devally said every further moment Mr Nolan and Ms Leahy were left in possession of the house meant a very valuable property stood at grave danger of being destroyed to an extent that would make it financially prohibitive to adequately restore.
"It is vandalism of the worst possible nature and a dreadful abuse of a tenancy," Judge Devally said. "It cries out to heaven for somebody to do something about it immediately." He granted immediate possession to Ms Webster and Mr Clarke with an award of more than £7,500 for rent arrears against Mr Nolan and £5,800 against Ms Leahy. He adjourned an assessment for damages.