Prisoners laughed at me because I was jailed over a fence, says father in dispute with neighbours

A father of five jailed in a row over a garden fence has claimed fellow inmates laughed when he told them why he was in prison.

Mark Coates, 56, spent seven weeks in prison for being in contempt of court after being involved in an “aggressive and violent” dispute with his neighbours Brian Greenwood, 69, and Janice Turner, 65.

Mr Coates and his wife Louise, 52, have now been handed a £475,000 court bill and will need to sell their home in Robertsbridge, near Hastings, East Sussex, to pay it.

“People laughed at me in prison when I told them what I was in for,” Mr Coates told MailOnline.

The neighbours fell out in 2016 over the fence that divides their homes.

The case went to court, and Mr Coates claimed his family had been denied justice because they could not afford legal representation.

“I’ve got nothing to hide but the judicial system lets you down because we can’t afford legal representation, we’ve been screwed,” he said.

“I’ve been stitched up because I’m a stocky bald-headed bloke, I get misjudged. I do get angry but that is because I’m frustrated with the situation.

“I don’t know how I can win. Now my children have no home to come back to.”

The Coates family moved to the area from Edenbridge, Kent, in 2015 in order to have a garden and extra space.

But Mr Coates, who is a full-time carer for his disabled son, said he had “concerns” about the fence overlapping their property, and it encroached even more when it was reconstructed after a storm.

During an early hearing in the dispute in October 2020, a High Court judge warned the neighbours that persisting in the row could result in financial ruin for one or both of them.

Despite this warning, the case continued and in September 2022, Judge Sarah Venn at Hastings county court found against Mr Coates.

The row escalated when Mr Coates was hauled back into court a year later after being accused of “juvenile behaviour” by his neighbours, who said he damaged their property by throwing stones at a bedroom window.

The judge found that he also used abusive language against them and swore at them.

Mr Coates was then jailed, but has since insisted that the judicial system has “let him down”.

He has told the judge that he doubts his house would sell for the required sum he needs to pay, adding: “I don’t know who would want to live next to them anyway.”