Bondi neighbours in court over puddle dispute
A dispute between Bondi neighbours over a garden hose and puddle has made its way to the NSW Court of Appeal with a man involved planning to take the matter even further.
NSW
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A "trivial" neighbourhood dispute over a puddle has gone all the way to the NSW Court of Appeal, with an exasperated judge at a loss to explain why the matter was even prosecuted.
Bondi man George Vok, who was forbidden from watering plants next to a neighbour’s window before he was caught with a garden hose and fined, took the fight to overturn the his conviction to the District Court and Court of Appeal but lost on October 3.
And the years-long battle may not be over yet, with Mr Vok telling The Daily Telegraph yesterday there were plans for it to go to the High Court.
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The saga began in March 2016 when Mr Vok's neighbour at his Ramsgate Ave unit block took out an apprehended personal violence order against him, which stated he was not allowed to water within a four-metre radius of her bedroom window.
But in December 2017 the neighbour went to police and claimed she had seen a “fresh puddle" outside her window and Mr Vok aiming a garden hose inside the four-metre boundary.
In the Local Court in July 2018, the woman described the puddle in a photograph as “within 1 metre, 1 and a half metres, maybe up to 2 metres of my bedroom window”.
Mr Vok — who argued he had not breached the order — was convicted for contravening the APVO and fined $110 after the hearing which “took the best part of a day”.
Mr Vok argued he had used Pythagoras’ theorem and treated the four-metre boundary as a measure of distance from the top of the window frame to ground level, but Magistrate Michael Barko rejected this, saying “the order is simply four metres of common property — it is not four metres of air space”.
Mr Vok appealed to the District Court but again failed last March, with a judge finding the puddle was “clearly within the exclusion zone” and that he had “caused the puddle” by aiming the hose towards the garden and lawn area underneath the window.
He then took the matter to the Court of Appeal but failed a second time and the case was dismissed, with an exasperated Justice Richard White calling the saga “trivial” and finding Mr Vok had breached the APVO by watering the grass or garden within the prohibited area
"Both the magistrate and the primary judge expressed frustration that their hard-pressed time should be consumed by such a trivial dispute,” he said.
“That frustration is understandable. It is surprising that the prosecution was ever brought. The public would be surprised that such a trivial dispute could by right command the attention of the Court of Appeal”.
Mr Vok declined to comment yesterday, saying he plans on appealing a third time.
“The matter has been appealed to (the) High Court,” he said.