Gnome defeat

Couple win back 8ft strip after statue raid

- BY NEV AYLING

A GREEN-FINGERED couple have won a scrap with their neighbours over 8ft of lawn outside their £1.3m home — sparked by the unwelcome installation of a garden gnome.

Keen gardener Liz Dobson and her partner Andrew Pleming, both 60, had lovingly tended a parcel of land at the end of the drive leading to their house - mowing it, planting herbs and flowers and letting their children play there.

But they were shocked when company CEO Alison Unsted, 47, and husband Darren, 54, moved in next door, cleared the plants and replaced them with a garden gnome, a tribunal heard.

The neighbours’ row eventually went before a judge, with Mrs Dobson and Mr Fleming claiming adverse possession — also known as “squatters’ rights” — over the strip of grass on the basis they had used it for years.