A DANCER made her neighbour’s life hell by accusing her of being in a gang and calling cops on her yoga studio in a row over their shared garden.
Sandra Eveno also staged a protest in the dirt when Kristyna Robinson paid for a builder to come and install a fence in a bid to stop the fighting.
When the workman arrived, Eveno brandished a tree and began attacking him.
Now Eveno could pay £15,000 in court bills for subjecting Ms Robinson, a yoga teacher, to such “irrational and aggressive” behaviour.
Eveno fell out with her upstairs neighbour shortly after moving into the downstairs flat in affluent West Hampstead, north London, in 2015.
Ms Robinson allegedly held noisy yoga classes upstairs, which prompted Eveno’s “deliberate campaign” of nuisance and annoyance.
Over seven years, Eveno made repeated false allegations of criminality to Ms Robinson’s yoga centre employers and police.
She also subjected her to “almost unremitting shouting and screaming”.
Now, after a long battle through the courts, Eveno’s landlord, the London Borough of Camden, has won an eviction order after a four-day trial before Judge Alan Saggerson.
Giving judgement at Central London County Court, the judge said “irrational” Eveno had developed an “almost phobic” dislike of her neighbour and deliberately targeted her with anti-social behaviour.
Judge Saggerson made a possession order in favour of the council, as well as ordering Eveno to pay up to £15,000 towards its lawyers’ bills.
He said: “For some reason, the defendant has taken an unjustified and strong dislike to Ms Robinson.”
And added that the hatred was “overwhelming, intense and irrational”.
Ms Robinson, a practitioner of Iyengar yoga, had lived in the upstairs flat in Sarre Road since 2002, the court heard.
With Eveno – a dancer, singer and photographer – moving in downstairs in 2015.
The council’s barrister, Desmond Kilcoyne, said there had been a “lack of clarity” about the tenants’ rights over the shared garden, resulting in a dispute.
Despite trying to mediate, the council was unable to solve the neighbours’ row, leading to a decision to divide the plot in half by constructing a fence in April 2019.
However, fencing the garden did not solve the bad blood, with Eveno lying down to prevent it being installed and the council going on to apply for a possession order on the grounds that she had caused years of “nuisance and annoyance” to her neighbour.
The judge maintained that Eveno had behaved in an “uncontrolled” manner over the years, finding she had committed many acts of deliberate nuisance.
He said she was “prone to uncontrolled ranting at her neighbours and the world at large.”
And found it “almost impossible to control her emotions,” partially down to physical and mental health issues.
Shockingly, judge discovered that Eveno had called one of Ms Robinson’s sons an “animal” and made “grunting animal noises” in his direction.
On another occasion, she had “snarled” at one of the sons, before confronting Ms Robinson in a “frighteningly aggressive and uncontrolled manner.”
She had repeatedly falsely accused the Robinsons of being involved in gang violence and drug dealing, calling her a “f***ing disgusting woman”.
Eveno even contacted a local yoga centre where Ms Robinson works, repeating the false allegations of criminality about the Robinson family, in 2022.
The dancer would also bang on the ceiling of her downstairs flat “without any justification or purpose other than to annoy Ms Robinson”.
Her claim that it was in response to dog urine coming through the ceiling “irrational and rather ludicrous.”
The judge also said the council’s decision to divide the garden with a fence had only resulted in a violent confrontation, with Eveno objecting and trying to prevent contractors from putting it up.
He said: “It’s quite clear that the defendant lay on the ground to prevent the fence being installed.
“She also brandished a branch of a bush or tree at the contractor and struck the contractor with that branch.”
The behaviour continued for years, said the judge, including an incident last July when Eveno had brandished a stick at her neighbour and “caught her” with it.
In her defence, Eveno had denied that most of the incidents happened, claiming that video and audio evidence had been doctored.
Some of her actions had been deliberately provoked by Ms Robinson, who had held noisy yoga classes upstairs, she also claimed.
But rejecting her defence, Judge Saggerson said that, while Eveno was “prone to paranoia and uncontrolled tearful ourbursts…it needs to be said, we are here dealing with dry tears.
“She is unfocussed and inconsistent and not a reliable historian.”
And while Ms Robinson’s behaviour was not always “impeccable,” it was “nothing like the extreme extent of the behaviour engaged in by Eveno,” he added.
He said 20 specific incidents of nuisance and annoyance brought to court by the council were “examples of a much broader course of conduct undertaken by the defendant and targeted principally, but not entirely, against Mrs Robinson.”
“I am satisfied that the 20 specific incidents were appropriately selected as individual episodes that accurately describe a pattern of behaviour of irrational shouting, screaming, and making false allegations to third parties, such as the police, Ms Robinson’s employers and the world at large.
“I am entirely satisfied that the effect of that conduct has been such as to make the Robinson family’s lives, and particularly Ms Robinson’s life, a complete misery for the last seven years.
“I am satisfied that if this cannot be stopped in some way, such continuing nuisance and annoyance are going to have an appreciable adverse effect on Ms Robinson’s peace of mind and indeed her own mental health.”
He said a possession order was necessary and that to suspend it on condition that Eveno behave properly would be “setting her up to fail” as repeat behaviour was “inevitable,” given that an interim injunction had not stopped her so far.
He made a possession order and ordered that Eveno pay towards Camden’s lawyers’ bills.
Mr Kilcoyne, for the council, confirmed Eveno to pay up £15,000 in Camden’s lawyers’ bills.
He said the council had for several years been offering to rehouse Eveno in another two-bed flat nearby and that she could now go there.
How to resolve a neighbour row
According to GOV.UK, follow these steps to resolve a dispute with your neighbour.
- Try to solve the problem informally by talking to them.
- If your neighbour is a tenant, you could contact their landlord.
- You could use a mediation service if raising the issue informally does not work.
- If the dispute involves a statutory nuisance (something like loud music or barking dogs), you can make a complaint to your local council.
- Contact the police if your neighbour is breaking the law by being violent or harassing you.
- As a last resort you can take legal action through the courts.
