Essex siblings ordered to pay £209,000 after cutting down neighbours’ 33-foot Leylandii trees

View from Robert McCarthy's home towards the old Leylandii trees at the bottom of the garden. (Photos: The Standard) Three siblings in Essex were ordered to pay about £30,500 in damages and £178,668 in their neighbours’ legal costs after cutting down a row of 33-foot Leylandii trees during a long-running boundary dispute. The court found that the siblings had trespassed into their neighbours’ garden and acted in a 'high-handed' and 'bullying' manner.According to The Standard, the dispute involved Robert McCarthy, 59, his wife Amanda, 61, and their neighbours Foulla Bowler, 61, John Barberis, 63, and Mary Englishby, 59. The McCarthys had lived in their home in Nazeing, Essex, since 2001, while Bowler had grown up in the neighbouring family home, which she now owns with her brother and sister.The two properties were separated by a fence, with a line of Leylandii trees on the McCarthys’ side. But around 2018, a dispute began over where the actual boundary between the gardens lay. Bowler and her siblings claimed the boundary was beyond the fence and that the trees therefore stood on their land.The disagreement eventually led to the removal of the fence and the cutting down of most of t...