Sussex Police is asking for an order to protect one of its officers from being “stalked” by a neighbour with whom his family has been in a long-running and occasionally violent dispute.
Richard Fairbank and PC Martin Waltham, who live opposite each other on the Old Shoreham Road, have been at odds for several years, and been featured in a Channel 5 documentary series, The Nightmare Neighbour Next Door, in April 2020.
Yesterday, a court heard that Fairbank has been tweeting prolifically about PC Waltham, accusing him of fabricating allegations against him and using the hashtags #PCDarkside, #bentcopper and #falseallegations.
They are requesting a stalking protection order to stop Fairbank tweeting any more.
Representing Sussex Police, Lloyd Thomas said: “Those tweets refer to PC Waltham by name, and say he’s a corrupt police officer who’s been making aspertions against Mr Fairbank.
“They are regular and ongoing for a prolonged period of time.”
He added: “There are going to be Article 10 [freedom of expression] issues in the matter. But I would remind the court of PC Waltham’s right not to have posts about him online which accuse him of being a bent copper – they are seriously damaging allegations.
“There’s a difference between making a lot of tweets about Sussex Police and slipping over the line into quite personal tweets which particularly to an individual person, attacking him over a prolonged period of time.”
Defending, Michael Walker said the row had been ongoing since 2017, with allegations made both ways, and a lengthy ongoing investigation into allegations made by PC Waltham.
He said there continued to be issues with PC Waltham’s sons and their driving.
He said: “These orders are intended to protect more heinous offences of stalking and not to deal with situations where there’s warring neighbours.
“One questions whether the police would have taken such an action in a normal situation of individual neighbours. One usually sees the police say this is a civil matter.”
He said the #PCDarkside hashtag was a reference to a tag on PC Waltham’s car, and that Mr Fairbanks alleged that PC Waltham had breached the data protection act by accessing the police database.
Many of the tweets in the police’s case were presented as standalone, he said, when in fact they were responding to tweets made by anonymous accounts which had since been deleted.
He said: “They’re often in response to something said by someone who Mr Fairbank believes is PC Waltham or one of his sons.
“The majority of the tweets refer to his frustrations that Sussex Police’s investigation is taking so long.
“If PC Waltham is trawling Twitter to find these tweets, you can’t categorise this as stalking. If they’re coming from Sussex Police, why are they feeding that information back if they feel this is a stalking offence and they’re investigating him for other offences as well?
“Individuals in this country are entitled to vent their frustration, particularly with public bodies. Parties can, within bounds of the law, vent their frustrations with matters that are going on and in my submission that’s all Mr Fairbank has done.
“He’s upset that he’s being investigated by police over allegations he says are completely foundationless.
“He’s simply an individual with an Article 10 right who’s frustrated by the allegations that have been made against him by a serving police officer which have been dealt with incredibly slowly.
“When he makes allegations, they are dealt with incredibly quickly. When he made allegations about the sons they were dealt with in three months. That’s not a luxury that has been afforded to Mr Fairbank.
“This could have been dealt with by the police dealing with the underlying allegations in a prompt manner. It’s simply a neighbour dispute that has escalated. It’s not something the police should have got involved in.
“The perception Mr Fairbank has is the police are simply looking after one of their own.”
In 2018, PC Waltham’s son Sam Waltham, now 29, was convicted of assaulting Fairbank’s wife and both him and his brother Lewis Waltham, now 26, were convicted of damaging their cars and threatening behaviour.
Fairbank was also charged with assaulting both brothers the previous year, but the case was discontinued because of a lack of evidence.
District judge Tessa Szagun said she would rule on whether or not to grant the order on 29 April.
Sussex Police was the first police force to obtain a stalking protection order in January 2020, the first month the Stalking Protection Act 2019 came into force.
The same year, it successfully applied for a lifelong order to prevent conspiracy theorist Matthew Taylor from contacting solicitor Gillian Jones, who works on behalf of Sussex Police crime commissioner Katy Bourne.
Most old bill are corrupt. Facts.
Good grief. They both need to grow up.
How ridiculous and petty all parties are. Nothing but playground antics, complete waste of everyone’s time. 5 year olds act more mature than these clowns.
I wonder what happened in the end, surely that would be equally newsworthy or is Wadsworth just another hack that likes to publish inflammatory headlines Miabout the police?