Cricket legend Colin Cowdrey’s son accuses neighbour of ‘terrorising’ him in bid to damage sale of his £3.85m dwelling – however she claims he is behaved ‘ungentlemanly’

Cricket legend Colin Cowdrey’s son has accused his neighbour of ‘terrorising’ him with a campaign of harassment in a bid to ruin the sale of his £3.85 million home. 

Film producer Jeremy Cowdrey even claimed the bizarre battle over a strip of land felt like water torture after he claimed she made his sprawling ten-acre country house unsellable.

But he is now locked in a bitter court fight with neighbour Vanessa Gibson – as she accuses the son of the former England captain of ‘ungentlemanly’ conduct for suing her.

The pair had initially had a good ‘neighbourly’ relationship, with Mrs Gibson, a former futures trader, helping Mr Cowdrey feed his ducks, she said.

But they fell out after she bought a strip of land in 2022, meaning that she bizarrely owned part of his tennis court at his Crowbourne Farm home, in Goudhurst, Kent.

Mr Cowdrey, whose father was the first man to play 100 Tests, claims she then embarked on a bid to ‘extract money’ from him.

He says she used the disagreement over the strip and other spurious complaints as a means to jeopardise his attempt to sell up and move on.

Suing for malicious falsehood and harassment, Mr Cowdrey says her behaviour resulted in him losing an agreed £3.85m sale of the house and has since prevented him moving on with his life.

Giving evidence this week, he told Judge Jane Evans-Gordon that Mrs Gibson had ‘terrorised’ him and likened her constant ‘clusterbomb’ of complaints as akin to water torture.

‘I likened it to the Japanese drip of water because it was like that,’ he said. ‘We are on the third anniversary of this. It’s been a really horrendous experience.’

The torture method fixed a victim below a ‘dripping machine’, where cold water was slowly dripped onto their scalp. It dates back to the 15th century, with an irregular pattern of the droplets and the sudden cold splash designed to cause fear and mental deterioration of the subject.

However, Mrs Gibson, 55, representing herself at Central London County Court, denies Mr Cowdrey’s claims, says she only raised legitimate issues about the property and that it is in fact Mr Cowdrey who has behaved in an ‘ungentlemanly’ way.

The court heard Mrs Gibson, a former futures trader, has lived in the area for many years, but that Mr Cowdrey moved in after buying Crowbourne Farm in early 2022.

It is made up of a sprawling Grade II-listed farmhouse with its own wine cellar, a separate guest cottage, studio, barn and workshop, a quadruple car port and over ten acres of grounds, including a tennis court, stables, woods and two lakes.

Mr Cowdrey told the judge he had been warned about the potential for trouble with his neighbour, who lives in a next door barn conversion, before he bought it.

He said he thought he could get over any problems, but that within a couple of months he realised the property was ‘not right’ for him and decided to sell.

Viewings were arranged and buyers were found, with a sale price of £3.85million agreed, but he says the purchasers pulled out due to a string of emails sent by Mrs Gibson.

He said they suggested that the neighbours’ row over the tennis court was still ongoing, when in fact it had been settled when he agreed to fence it off and give up any claim to the strip she had bought.

However, she had also emailed him, his lawyer and estate agent with allegations relating to his right to run water, electricity, sewage and phone services across her land, his barrister, Brooke Lyne, said.

She had also brought up issues of flooding in the area, suggesting it may be down to work done by the previous owners on Mr Cowdrey’s land.

She had stated in her emails that she wanted them brought to the attention of any purchasers, with the result that buyers were well aware of the neighbourhood dispute.

‘It is the claimant’s case that the defendant launched a cynical campaign of harassment raising numerous spurious and false claims against him with the motivation of extracting financial gain from him,’ she said.

‘The defendant’s communications alleged that there was a ‘potential dispute’ or that the earlier boundary dispute was unresolved, but this was clearly false and a cynical attempt to cause confusion and chaos as the claimant’s sale process developed.’

Mrs Gibson is fighting his claim on the basis that she has ‘from time to time raised what she regards as perfectly reasonable and legitimate issues and concerns with the claimant and his legal team.’

Cross-examining Mr Cowdrey, who has since rented out his home and moved away, she suggested that his buyer might in fact have pulled out because of soaring interest rates.

But Mr Cowdrey denied the claim, responding: ‘The buyer was so excited, but one by one, as these emails came through, he rang up and said ‘what the hell is going on?’

‘The reason he pulled out was because of the emails that you have sent through. It is nothing to do with interest rates.’

Mrs Gibson told the court that she considered she had tried to address issues in the area in a ‘polite and neighbourly fashion.’

‘We had discussed in a neighbourly way over the gate those issues,’ she told Mr Cowdrey, accusing him of ‘not being truthful.’

Her emails had also been responses to his solicitor’s inquiries, she added.

Mr Cowdrey told her: ‘You bought the piece of land to get financial gain from me. It was unpleasant. I tried to buy that land from you. I asked you to say a price. You wouldn’t.

‘You wouldn’t talk to me and you terrorised me for months and months.

‘At no stage would you consider dropping any of your baseless allegations even when they’re proven to be false.

‘I wanted to settle this all the way through. I never wanted to be here.

‘I didn’t want to spend three years of my life wasting time with solicitors, but I had no option.

‘Why we are here is nothing to do with the strip, it’s because I can’t sell my house.

‘If you wouldn’t drop the allegations, I would have to come all the way here, which I find distasteful.’

Mrs Gibson responded: ‘I’m sorry you find it distasteful, I find it ungentlemanly.’

She said she had had a ‘neighbourly relationship’ with Mr Cowdrey and that she had helped him with drive maintenance and feeding his ducks.

Denying that she had bought the strip ‘underhandedly,’ Mrs Gibson said she found it ‘deeply upsetting’ to be threatened with arrest if she stepped on it, although Mr Cowdrey said he could not remember anyone making such a threat.

He added: ‘It doesn’t give me any pleasure… but I’m afraid to say you have a reputation out there. A lot of people are quite frightened of you.’

She put to him: ‘Are you saying the only reason your house is unsellable is because I live next door?’

He responded: ‘Until you drop the allegations I have been advised that there is no way I can sell the house.’

Mr Cowdrey says his house would now be worth £3.7m absent Mrs Gibson’s allegations and so is suing for the £150,000 difference between that and the £3.85m sale he agreed, plus at least another £35,000 in damages.

He is the second son of Colin, Lord Cowdrey, who was the first cricketer to play 100 Tests and was the first to be made a peer for his services to the game.

Lord Cowdrey was an outstanding batsman, famed for his style and nonchalance both on and off the field, with one commentator saying he seemed to ‘charm rather than strike the ball’. A fellow England player labelled him an ‘unbridled genius’.

His second son, Jeremy, worked as a City stockbroker for 20 years, later switching to working as a film producer and helping create the movie ‘Summer in February’ in 2013, starring Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey fame.

Lord Cowdrey’s two other sons, Chris and Graham, went on to play cricket for Kent and Chris also saw six Tests for England. He also had a daughter, Carolyn.

The trial continues.