Easement of light–Claim for damages for obstruction of light to two windows on second floor of plaintiff’s property–Unusual situation where rooms behind the ancient windows had recently been remodelled by subdivision of a single room–Defendants had erected two additional storeys opposite the ancient windows, but, although acknowledging an interference with light, they denied that there was any actionable nuisance–The rooms affected by defendants’ operations were in use as part of a suite of rooms devoted to the ‘alternative therapy’–There was a conflict of expert evidence as to the extent of the interference with the plaintiff’s right to light–The defendants’ expert gave evidence to the effect that the single room, which had been subdivided within the prescriptive period and should therefore be considered for this purpose, remained adequately lit by the application of the recognised ’50-50 rule’, so that the defendants’ works did not constitute an actionable nuisance–The plaintiff’s expert considered that, taking the second floor as now subdivided, there was a severe loss of daylight in the two rooms affected–Millett J rejected the defendants’ approach, which tended to apply the 50-50 rule rigidly as if it were a rule of law–Although the defendants’ works might not reduce the light over the whole single floor area (as it existed before subdivision) below a reasonable standard, it severely diminished the amount of light in two of the places where it was reasonably to be expected, namely, near the two rear windows–The relevant inquiry was directed, not to the amount of light taken, but to the amount of light left–The wrong consisted of the disturbance of the dominant owner in the comfortable enjoyment, not of a particular room, but of his property; and his right of light was not measured by the particular use to which the dominant tenement had been put in the past–He is entitled to such access of light as will leave his premises adequately lit for all ordinary purposes for which they may reasonably be expected to be used–In the present case some subdivision of the second floor was an ordinary and reasonable use to which the space might be put–Held accordingly that the defendants had caused a substantial interference with the plaintiff’s enjoyment of his property–On the quantum of damages there was again a conflict of expert evidence–The defendants’ expert extracted from his figure of rental value that part which was attributable to light, but the judge considered that this method of calculation was more appropriate to an award of special damages–Here it was a question of general damages–Held, taking account of loss of amenity generally, and of the parties’ relative bargaining position, that the appropriate amount was £8,000. Judgment for plaintiff accordingly
The following cases are referred to in this report.
Bracewell v Appleby [1975] Ch 408; [1975] 2 WLR 282; [1975] 1 All ER 993; [1976] EGD 190; (1974) 237 EG 731, [1976] 1 EGLR 119
Colls v Home & Colonial Stores Ltd [1904] AC 179, HL
Moore v Hall (1878) 3 QBD 178
News of the World Ltd v Allen Fairhead & Sons Ltd [1931] 2 Ch 402
Ough v King [1967] 1 WLR 1547; [1967] 3 All ER 859; (1967) 19 P&CR 40; [1967] EGD 692; 204 EG 251, CA
Price v Hilditch [1930] 1 Ch 500
Smith v Evangelization Society (Incorporated) Trust [1933] 1 Ch 515
Smyth v Dublin Theatre Co Ltd [1936] IR 692
Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798; [1974] 2 All ER 321; (1973) 27 P&CR 296
This was an action by the plaintiff, Nicholas James Carr-Saunders, for damages for the obstruction of light to two windows on the second floor at the rear of premises at 2 Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, London WC2. The defendants were Dick McNeil Associates Ltd, Richard Kinsop McNeil and Deirdre Ann McNeil.
Gordon Bennett (instructed by Desmond Banks) appeared on behalf of the plaintiff; C I Howells (instructed by Bircham & Co) represented the defendants.
Giving judgment, MILLETT J said: In this action, the plaintiff claims damages for the obstruction of the light to two windows on the second floor at the rear of premises known as 2 Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden. The case is an unusual and perhaps important one, because it involves (for the first time, so far as I am aware) the approach of the court to the situation where the windows in question are ancient windows and have been in position for more than 20 years but the rooms behind those windows have not.
At the rear, the premises look out on to a narrow light-well, which tapers in width from 10 ft 8 in to 10 ft, and face the premises of the defendants known as 15 Short’s Gardens, on which the defendants have recently erected two additional storeys. The plaintiff originally sought a mandatory injunction requiring the defendants to pull down the additional storeys, but in the course of the hearing his counsel acknowledged that this was not a proper case for the grant of an injunction and invited me to award damages instead. The defendants for their part acknowledge that the plaintiff has established a prescriptive right to light to the two windows in question and that the increase in the height of their building has appreciably reduced the amount of light received through those windows; but they deny that it has done so to such an extent as to constitute an actionable nuisance.
The plaintiff bought 2 Neal’s Yard in 1968. At that time the second floor (which is a large area measuring some 20 ft from front to rear and some 570 sq ft in all) was in the occupation of a lessee who used it for the purpose of manufacturing stage scenery, with an ancillary office. That office, which was situated roughly where the Red room is now but was slightly larger in area, was separated from the rest of the second floor by a solid partition. The remainder of the space was divided up by plastic sheeting fixed to wooden battens, the purpose of which was to prevent sawdust from carpentry penetrating into areas where scenery was being painted.
|page:182|
In 1976 the plaintiff obtained possession of the second floor and converted it into living accommodation for himself. He installed a bath, a hot-water system and roof insulation. He removed all the partitions, thereby converting the whole of the second floor, including the site of the former office, into a single open space. It was a well-lit area. On the front, looking out into Neal’s Yard, there were three windows and a partially glazed loading door with hoist above. At the rear were the two windows facing 15 Short’s Gardens. Each of six apertures gave the appearance even then of having been there for very many years.
In 1981 or 1982 the plaintiff added two extra storeys for his own occupation and converted the second floor into a suite of therapy rooms. He altered the position of the stairs and constructed solid, internal walls to divide the space into a reception area and central corridor with six separate rooms opening off it, four at the front and two at the rear, each with a single window. At the same time the plaintiff converted the partially glazed loading door at the front into a fully glazed window, and in order to obtain natural light to the reception area he obtained the consent of the owner of 17 Short’s Gardens to open a third window at the rear facing those premises. That window having been so recently opened, and its user being precarious, it is common ground that its existence and the availability of light thereto are to be disregarded for present purposes.
Each of the six rooms is painted in a different colour and is known accordingly. The rooms are let by the morning or afternoon session to individual self-employed practitioners of different forms of what is called ‘alternative therapy’, who use them to treat their own patients. The present planning use for the second floor (granted in 1983) is as medical consulting rooms.
The two rooms at the rear are the Green room and the Red room. Like the other consulting rooms, they are tiny. The Green room measures 8 ft deep by 8.6 ft wide, and the Red room measures 9.5 ft deep by 8.6 ft wide. It is their windows which have been obstructed by the defendants’ building works.
I have heard evidence from the plaintiff himself, from his manageress (who doubles as a receptionist) and from two of the therapists. I have also had the benefit of expert evidence from two witnesses: Mr Young, an architect, who was called by the plaintiff, and Mr Anstey, a well-known expert on problems of light, who was called by the defendants. I have also viewed the premises myself.
To a considerable extent, particularly on the question of liability, I discount the evidence of the lay witnesses. In the first place, with the exception of the plaintiff himself, none of them saw the second floor when it was a single open space (nor, of course, did I). Second, their evidence is necessarily subjective, and the recollection of laymen of the amount of light formerly enjoyed is notoriously unreliable. Third, the layman is incapable of distinguishing between direct and reflected light. Fourth, the loss of privacy, the worsening of the view (from a wall surmounted by a sloping roof to a single expanse of brickwork) and the optical illusion that the two buildings have become closer all combine in the witnesses’ minds with the loss of light to form a single, confused impression of a greatly deteriorating working environment which it is extremely difficult and perhaps impossible to attribute accurately to its different components.
The expert witnesses, as one might expect, were virtually in complete agreement on the facts. Only their approach, and therefore their conclusions, differed. Both produced daylight contour plans and tested the adequacy of the remaining light by the conventional 50-50 rule, by which a room may be regarded as adequately lit for all ordinary purposes if 50% or more of its area receives not less than one lumen of light at table level. The measurements made by the two witnesses differed slightly but not to any significant extent. It seems that this was caused by the different methods they employed to produce their contour plans and that the method employed by Mr Anstey is the more accurate of the two. I shall adopt his figures where such figures are available. What it comes to is that Mr Anstey does not consider that the rear portion of the second floor was quite as well lit before the defendants’ building work as does Mr Young and that Mr Anstey calculates the subsequent reduction to be slightly less. The experts’ evidence can be summarised as follows.
Mr Anstey
Mr Anstey insisted that the subdivision of the second floor should be ignored as this had occurred within the prescriptive period. Accordingly, he treated the second floor as a single room 20 ft deep and 570 sq ft in area, lit by six windows — four at the front and two at the rear. His calculations showed that 66.2% of the total area of such a room received at least one lumen of light at table level before the defendants raised the height of their building, and that 58.4% does so now. Applying the 50-50 rule, he concluded that the defendants’ building operations did not constitute an actionable nuisance, as the single room remained adequately lit (according to the 50-50 rule) for all normal purposes.
Mr Anstey’s contour plans, however, like Mr Young’s showed that even with a second floor as a single open space, the one lumen contour line for the light from the four front windows (which of course have not been obstructed) ran roughly along the line of the present corridor wall nearer to those windows; in other words, the whole or virtually the whole of the front portion of the second floor (ie the portion now occupied by the four front rooms) received at least one lumen of light at table level. Mr Anstey told me that the zero-lumen contour line (or the line of ‘no sky penetration’ as it is called) ran slightly further towards the rear, somewhere in what is now the central corridor. It follows that, even before the subdivision of the second floor, no direct light from the front windows ever reached the rear portion of the second floor where the Red and Green rooms now are. Those portions were lit solely by direct light from the two rear windows, together with reflected light from the front windows. The subdivision of the second floor, Mr Anstey told me, would have had a significant psychological effect by depriving the rear portion of the sight of the four windows, and it would have appreciably darkened the rear portion, but the latter effect would have been due entirely to the reduction in the amount of reflected light.
Mr Young
Mr Young drew the appropriate daylight contour plans for the second floor as now subdivided, and his calculations showed a severe loss of daylight in the Green and Red rooms. He calculated the proportion of the area of each room enjoying at least one lumen of light at table level as follows:
Red room
|
Before the defendants’ building works |
55% |
|
After the defendants’ building works |
4.5% |
|
This represents a 92% loss of daylight area. |
Green room
|
Before the defendants’ building works |
57% |
|
After the defendants’ building works |
6.5% |
|
This represents an 89% loss of daylight area. |
These figures require some small adjustment for the reasons I have already mentioned; but an addition of 1% or so (which is all that is required) to each of the figures does not affect the obvious conclusions to be drawn from them. Before the defendants increased the height of their building, the two rooms were poorly but adequately lit. Now (confirming my own impression) they are dark and gloomy cells.
Mr Young’s contour plans, however, also show that even if the wall between the Green room and the Red room, as well as the rearmost corridor wall, were removed, the figures would not be significantly different. The removal of those walls would produce a single, large room at the rear of the second floor some 10 ft deep by more than 20 ft wide, but it would not, of course, increase the amount of direct light available from the two rear windows. By increasing slightly the total area to be lit (by the addition of the area previously occupied by the walls) the only effect would be to reduce still further the proportion of that area receiving one lumen of light at table level. Therefore it would be a fairly large room but extremely poorly lit.
Both witnesses agreed that before the defendants raised the height of their building it was possible to view the sky from each of the two windows at the rear of the second floor of 2 Neal’s Yard, but only if one stood within 2 ft 6 in of the window. This is no longer possible now. Mr Anstey also accepted that there was formerly some sunlight visible from each window, but only between the spring and summer solstice; now, sunlight is virtually never visible. To the extent that this evidence may differ from that of the lay witnesses, it is calculated and not merely recollected, and I accept it.
On this evidence Mr Howells, who appeared for the defendants, submitted that no actionable nuisance had been established. The question, he pointed out, was not whether there had been a substantial diminution of the plaintiff’s light but whether what was left was sufficient for normal purposes according to the ordinary notions of mankind. It is, he submitted, not open to a dominant owner, by any act on his part during the prescriptive period, to increase the burden on the servient tenement: see News of the World Ltd v Allen Fairhead & Sons Ltd [1931] 2 Ch 402; Smith v|page:183| Evangelization Society (Inc) Trust [1933] 1 Ch 515 at pp 538-9 per Romer LJ. Accordingly, he submitted, the present internal walls, which were erected only in 1981 or 1982, should be disregarded (as Mr Anstey disregarded them) and the second floor should be treated as still a single room; and by the application of the 50-50 rule to that room it was clear that sufficient light remained for all ordinary purposes even today.
I reject this approach. It applies the 50-50 rule rigidly as if it were a rule of law and not (as it is) as merely a useful guide to be adopted or discarded according to the circumstances. The 50-50 rule is not, in my judgment, to be applied without any regard to the shape and size of the room or the disposition of the light within the room to which it is applied. The justification of the 50-50 rule is that an owner is unreasonable if he complains that the corners or other parts of the room where good light is not expected are poorly lit, if the room as a whole remains well lit. As Meredith J said in Smyth v Dublin Theatre Co Ltd [1936] IR 692 at p 703:
No inconvenience is felt by reason of the fact that portions of the room are in comparative darkness, provided the room as a whole is fairly well lit and a reasonable area near the window enjoys a sufficiency of direct light. If a plaintiff is unreasonable if he complains of defective lighting in corners of the room, where adequate light is not to be expected and is generally comparatively useless . . ., is he to be considered unreasonable if he complains of defective light a few feet from the window, though such light is well above the expert’s standard for the room as a whole, if near the window is a place where better light may be expected to be found?
And at p 705 the learned judge said:
And interpreting the term ‘ordinary light’ in a common sense manner I hold that a plaintiff is not claiming more than ordinary light simply because he claims a reasonable amount of direct light where he may expect to find it in a room laterally lighted. . . . If that much latitude is not given to the expression ‘ordinary light,’ the flexibility of the legal principle stressed in Colls v Home & Colonial Stores [1904] AC 179 is lost, and a rigid standard set up by experts is introduced.
Applying those principles even to the single room as it stood before the subdivision, it is clear that the effect of raising the height of the defendants’ building by two storeys, while it did not reduce the light over the whole of that space below a reasonable standard, severely diminished the amount of light in two of the places where it was reasonably to be expected, that is to say near the two rear windows. The disposition of light within the room after the construction of the two additional storeys is such, in my judgment, that it would leave the dominant owner reasonably dissatisfied. The room as a whole may be adequately lit, but significant portions of it near the windows — not merely the corners or parts unlikely to be well lit — are poorly lit by direct light.
Moreover, it seems to me that Mr Howells’ approach is inaccurate and begs the question. It is inaccurate because, even before subdivision, no direct light from the front windows ever reached the rear portion of the second floor, which was thus as dependent on the two rear windows for direct light before the subdivision as after it. Since it is well established that reflected light is not to be taken into account for present purposes, it necessarily follows that the subdivision of the second floor has not increased the burden on the defendants’ premises. All it has done is to reduce the dimensions to which it is sought to apply the 50-50 rule and thereby affect the conclusions to be drawn from the rigid application of that rule. It begs the question, since it assumes that, before subdivision, the 50-50 rule should be applied to the entirety of the second floor without regard to the size and shape of the area, the disposition of light within it, or its suitability for subdivision.
In my judgment, it is necessary to bear three principles in mind. First, section 3 of the Prescription Act 1832 provides:
when the access and use of light to and for any dwelling-house, workshop or other building shall have been actually enjoyed therewith for the full period of 20 years without interruption, the right thereto shall be deemed absolute and indefeasible . . .
Accordingly, as Maugham J pointed out in Price v Hilditch [1930] 1 Ch 500 at p 508, the right acquired under section 3 of that Act is an easement for the access of light to a building, not to a particular room within it; so that the extent of the right is not necessarily to be measured by the internal arrangements of the building.
Second, interference with the right constitutes the tort of nuisance. The question in every case, therefore, is whether there has been such a substantial interference with the use and enjoyment of his property by the dominant owner that it constitutes an actionable nuisance. This is, of course, qualified by the rule, now well established, that no actionable wrong is committed if the amount of light remaining is sufficient for the comfortable enjoyment of his property by the dominant owner according to the ordinary notions of mankind. Accordingly, the inquiry is directed not to the amount of light taken, but to the amount of light left. The wrong, however, consists in the disturbance of the dominant owner in comfortable enjoyment, not of a particular room, but of his property.
Third, the dominant owner’s right of light is not measured by the particular use to which the dominant tenement had been put in the past: see Price v Hilditch (supra). The extent of the dominant owner’s right is neither increased nor diminished by the actual use to which the dominant owner has chosen to put his premises or any of the rooms in them: for he is entitled to such access of light as will leave his premises adequately lit for all ordinary purposes for which they may reasonably be expected to be used. The court must, therefore, take account not only of the present use but also of other potential uses to which the dominant owner may reasonably be expected to put the premises in the future: see Moore v Hall (1878) 3 QBD 178 at p 182, where Cockburn CJ said:
The matter, in my opinion, to be considered is, whether there is any diminution of light for any purpose for which the dominant tenement may be reasonably considered available.
In my judgment, an alteration in the internal arrangement of the premises comes within the same principle. In Colls v Home & Colonial Stores Ltd [1904] AC 179, Lord Davey said at p 202:
The easement is for access of light to the building, and if the building retains its substantial identity, or if the ancient lights retain their substantial identity, it does not seem to me to depend on the use which is made of the chambers in it, or to be varied by any alteration which may be made in the internal structure of it.
And later on the same page:
But while agreeing that a person does not lose his easement by any change in the internal structure of his building or the use to which it is put, and that regard may be had, not only to the present use, but also to any ordinary uses to which the tenement is adapted, I think it is quite another question whether he is entitled to be protected at the expense of his neighbour in the enjoyment of the light for some special or extraordinary purpose.
And at p 204:
According to both principle and authority, I am of the opinion that the owner or occupier of the dominant tenement is entitled to the uninterrupted access through his ancient windows of a quantity of light, the measure of which is what is required for the ordinary purposes of inhabitancy or business of a tenement according to the ordinary notions of mankind, and that the question for what purpose he has thought fit to use that light, or the mode in which he finds it convenient to arrange the internal structure of his tenement, does not affect the question.
In Ough v King [1967] 1 WLR 1547 it was pointed out that higher standards of light may now be demanded for comfort and it may well be that in today’s economic conditions smaller as well as lighter rooms are now accepted.
In my judgment, therefore, even before the subdivision of the second floor it would have been necessary for the court to consider the effect of the defendants’ building works not only on the second floor as it was then used (that is to say, as a single open space) but on any other arrangement of that space which might reasonably be expected to be adopted in the future.
An essential question in the present case, therefore, is whether some subdivision (not necessarily the present subdivision) of the second floor is an ordinary and reasonable use to which that space may be put. I am satisfied that it is.
Mr Young took the view that any ordinary occupier would want to subdivide the second floor as it has been subdivided: first, because the present planning use is as medical consulting rooms; and second, because the area of Covent Garden in which the premises are situated tends to attract the smaller business occupier. Mr Anstey, by contrast, thought the present use to be an extraordinary one: the subdivision, he thought, had resulted in tiny, poky rooms which no other user would want.
I do not propose to attempt to resolve that particular issue. Mr Anstey conceded that some subdivision of the second floor would be a natural and ordinary use of the space. He would not do it himself: but that, he conceded, was a matter of personal preference. He thought that an owner would be as likely to subdivide the space as not. Mr Anstey was specifically asked in cross-examination whether it was now possible to divide the area into two in such a way that both portions would be adequately lit, applying the 50-50 rule to each
portion separately. This was, of course, easy before the defendants raised the height of 15 Short’s Gardens; indeed, both the Red and Green rooms separately, as well as the whole of the rear portion comprising the corridor and the Red and Green rooms taken as a single whole, satisfied the 50-50 rule. Mr Anstey said that he was convinced that the division could be done, but that it would probably be necessary to reposition the staircase.
I am quite satisfied that it can no longer easily be done. There are only two natural ways in which the space can be divided into two. One is along the line of the corridor. This leaves the rear portion, adequately lit before the defendants’ building works, now extremely dark and gloomy. The other is to divide the space by a line drawn at right angles to the corridor. Mr Young has calculated the result if the line is drawn in the most obvious places, at the point where the staircase ends, so that the total area is divided into two rectangles. His calculations show a substantial loss of daylight area in the larger of the two rectangles. He calculated that the proportion of the larger area enjoying at least one lumen of light at table level before the defendants’ building works was 57% and after them is 43%, a reduction of 25%. Again, for the reasons I have already stated, these figures require a minor adjustment; but this does not affect the conclusion to be drawn from them.
In my judgment, therefore, the raising of the height of the defendants’ premises has caused a substantial interference with the plaintiff’s enjoyment of his property, 2 Neal’s Yard, since the space on the second floor can no longer comfortably be used for any purpose which requires the subdivision of that space. In my judgment, on this basis the plaintiff has established an actionable nuisance — not because the Red and Green rooms are no longer adequately lit (though they are not) but because the second floor can no longer (as it formerly could) conveniently be subdivided in such a way that the subdivided areas each receive an adequate amount of light.
This makes it unnecessary to consider a further submission made on behalf of the plaintiff, that the amount of light coming from the front windows may in future be reduced by further development to the north. I have Mr Young’s evidence that such development would cause some further deterioration, but I have no means of telling how much or whether it would seriously affect the available light.
I come therefore to the question of the quantum of damages. On this I have had the benefit of the evidence of expert witnesses. Mr Young gave evidence as an architect and not as a valuer, but he had some experience of the approach of developers to valuations and was familiar with Covent Garden. He took the rental value of the premises at £10 a sq ft and the capitalised value of the loss of rental value due to loss of light as between £6,000 and £12,000. Mr Anstey, who is a qualified valuer, considered that the rental value of the premises with their present user was some £6 per sq ft, though he did not, I think, really disagree with the evidence that with an improved planning use the value would be higher and perhaps as much as £10 per sq ft. It seems to me, consistently with the approach that I have already adopted on liability, that I ought not to disregard the prospect of an improved planning use in the future. Mr Anstey’s evidence proceeded by a detailed calculation which began by extracting that part of the rental value attributable to light from the residual value. At £6 per sq ft he took it to be £3 per sq ft, and at £10 per sq ft he took it to be £3.75 per sq ft. Capitalising the loss of rental value attributable to the loss of light, having first zoned the floor area by reference to the degree by which the light had been reduced, he arrived at a figure of £2,340 at £6 per sq ft or £2,900-odd at £10 per sq ft.
If these were special damages which could be precisely calculated in this way, I should have no hesitation in preferring Mr Anstey’s evidence to that of Mr Young. But I have to award general damages, and in my judgment, on the authorities which have been cited to me, I am entitled to take into account not only the loss of light but the loss of amenity generally, due to such factors as loss of sky visibility, the impression that the building at the rear is now closer than it was (though that is an optical illusion), the loss of sunlight and other such matters — in short, the general deteriorating quality of the environment. Also I have to bear in mind the fact that in any negotiations between the plaintiff and the defendants the plaintiff would certainly not be satisfied with the £3,000 which Mr Anstey considers appropriate. He would have a bargaining position because, unless he were bought out, the defendants would be inhibited in their development. In Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798 this approach was applied to the award of damages for breach of restrictive covenants; and in Bracewell v Appleby [1975] Ch 408 it was applied to damages for obstruction to a right of way. In my judgment the same approach ought to be adopted where damages are awarded, in lieu of a mandatory injunction, for the interruption of the right of light to ancient windows. It cannot make the slightest difference that the right obstructed is enjoyed by virtue of a prescriptive easement and not by virtue of a recently executed deed of covenant (as would be the case, for example, with a recently opened window where the servient owner had covenanted not to obstruct it).
Accordingly I am entitled to take account of the servient owner’s bargaining position and the amount of profit which the defendants would look to in the development of their site. I have no evidence of the amount of profit which the defendants are expected to make from their development — largely, I think, because the plaintiff was seeking a mandatory injunction and no one recognised that documents which would throw light upon the profit to be made from the development were material and ought to be disclosed on discovery. But I have evidence of the general loss of amenity, given to me by the lay witnesses and corroborated to some extent by the expert witnesses; and it seems to me obvious that any dominant owner, negotiating with a servient owner for monetary compensation for the loss of light, would take into account the general loss of amenity which his premises would suffer. To that extent, it seems to me that the court is entitled to approach the question on the basis that damages are awarded in lieu of an injunction and not merely in compensation for the loss of the actual legal right. If a mandatory injunction had been granted, the building would have been pulled down and the plaintiff would have been restored not only to his direct light but also to sky visibility, a pleasant view of brickwork and a sloping roof, sunlight, and so on.
I have little material to guide me, except that £3,000 or thereabouts must be the absolute minimum figure. Doing the best I can and taking account, I hope, of all the considerations which have been pressed upon me by both sides, of the evidence that I have heard and, indeeed, of my own view, I award general damages of £8,000.
Judgment was given for plaintiff against all three defendants in the sum of £8,000, with costs, to include the costs reserved of the summons.
