Bitter driveway battle erupts in considered one of Australia’s richest suburbs: ‘This is my final warning’

A Perth architect has been cleared after being accused of threatening her elderly neighbour with a ‘Crocodile Dundee’-style knife, after a magistrate ruled the complainant was not a credible witness and had exaggerated her claims.

Louise St John Kennedy, 74, walked free from a Perth court after Magistrate Lynette Dias rejected paediatric rheumatologist Prudence Manners’ account of a 2024 confrontation stemming from a long-running parking dispute at their affluent Claremont strata complex.

In delivering her decision, Ms Dias said Dr Manners, 81, was neither reliable nor honest, finding she repeatedly altered her evidence, including the alleged length of the incident and the claimed 40cm to 45cm knife, undermining her credibility.

She said metadata from Ms Kennedy’s phone proved the confrontation could not have lasted as long as alleged.

The magistrate also criticised courtroom footage showing Dr Manners’ daughter making hand signals to her mother while she was on the stand, calling it ‘unsatisfactory, and that’s an understatement’.

She described text messages sent by Dr Manners to her neighbour as ‘gaslighting’ and found the exasperated architect had been ‘provoked’ during a ‘final straw’ moment.

Ms Dias ultimately accepted there was no evidence Ms Kennedy used a knife.

The case centred on a heated argument in May 2024, captured on camera by a neighbour, showing Ms Kennedy yelling ‘move your car you f****** dumb bitch’ at Dr Manners outside their $2million homes.

Dr Manners told the court Ms Kennedy brandished ‘the largest knife I’d ever seen in my life’ and spent ’10 to 15 minutes slashing and swooshing’ it within centimetres of her, allegedly calling her ‘a f****** dumb arsehole’ and grabbing her by the neck.

‘I thought it was going to be my last experience on this earth,’ she told an earlier hearing.

Ms Kennedy denied holding a knife, saying she instead had her phone and an angle-finder ruler in her hands.

She admitted yelling profanities but said she momentarily lost control only after Dr Manners allegedly shouted at her, ‘hope the dog dies, Louise’.

The confrontation followed months of hostility over parking rules at the shared driveway, which Ms Kennedy had designed before partially selling off the development and creating by-laws including a strict no-parking zone in front of the garages.

Court-tendered text messages showed Dr Manners repeatedly parked in the prohibited area from early 2024, blocking Ms Kennedy’s car despite warnings from both her neighbour and the strata manager.

By March, after five more incidents, Ms Kennedy attempted to smooth relations, but the pattern continued.

When Ms Kennedy refused the doctor’s offer to show her how to ‘back her vehicle out’ around the illegally parked car, tensions escalated again.

In the days before the confrontation, Ms Kennedy sent a final warning:

‘Prue, after numerous polite requests for you to not park in the signed No Parking body corp area I’m again blocked in by your thoughtless parking,’ she texted.

‘Are you completely stupid or just incredibly thoughtless or both.

‘Stop saying there’s room to get around a parked car and use your common sense and understand why that is both wrong and ignorant … and very f****** frustrating.

‘It is NO PARKING. This is my very last warning. Take this seriously. Louise.’

Outside court, Ms Kennedy said she was relieved by the decision.

‘I was always confident of my side of the story and that justice would be done once that came out, and it was,’ she told 9News.

‘We’ve all been through a difficult process, Dr Manners, her family, and I hope we’ve got it in our hearts that we can live together peacefully now.’

 

Ms Kennedy still faces a separate charge of breaching a restraining order after allegedly threatening to run over Dr Manners in September last year.

She has pleaded not guilty and told 9News she hopes the allegation will be dropped at her next court appearance in March.