A man has been ordered to pay £1,500 in damages after he was convicted of stalking following a vindictive smear and surveillance campaign.
Matthew Kenyon, 36, was nicknamed ‘Big Brother’ after he delved into the work and private lives of Carey and Rachel Styles who lived next door and set up CCTV cameras to spy on them.
The conflict arose after they fell out over his car being damaged when the Styles’ van door was blown into it by strong wind. An argument over the cost of repairs launched a six-year feud which finally saw the Styles driven out last year.
Kenyon wrote a collection of poison pen emails, made a string of complaints against the couple and even researched the background of their visitors in a bid to get them to leave their £200,000 rented property in Widnes, Cheshire.
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Warrington Magistrates Court heard how the Styles Family moved into their property in 2017 but fell out with Kenyon when a gust of wind blew their van door against the bodywork of Kenyon’s BMW.
This began a series of conflicts about the cost of repairs and Styles was reported to police after he was repeatedly caught on Kenyon’s CCTV throwing abuse and on one occasion spraying the BMW with bleach.
In 2022, Styles was convicted of harassment, fined £160 and ordered to abide by a six-month ‘acceptable behaviour contract’ drawn up by Halton Housing which rents out the property. But Kenyon, who lives with his partner, then sent a slew of further complaints about Mr and Mrs Styles to various agencies in a spiteful attempt to have them moved on.
During his campaign which lasted for ten months, Kenyon sent letters to a Roman Catholic primary school where Mrs Styles, a cancer sufferer, was a teaching assistant to falsely claim she and her husband mixed with “prolific cocaine users.”
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Mrs Styles was made the subject of two official safeguarding investigations following the allegations against her. However, she kept her job after investigating officers found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Mr Styles who runs a construction firm, was also reported to his local council and police after Kenyon discovered he was unwittingly employing a convicted rapist as one of his labourers.
The workman was laid off by Mr Styles when told about his background but he was still forced to pull out of a £3,500 renovation project offered to him by the school. The couple eventually moved out of their property in October last year.
At Warrington Magistrates Court, Kenyon was ordered to pay £1,500 in damages. He was also sentenced to 300 hours of unpaid work after he was convicted of stalking following a trial at which he denied any wrongdoing. He was also banned from contacting the victims for five years under the terms of a restraining order.
Mr Styles said in his victim statement: “I have been suffering from anxiety and depression as a result of this constant surveillance and I am constantly worrying about the effects it’s had on my partner.
“She was recovering from cancer surgery and the added stress on her was having a detrimental effect and I worried about her.”
Kenyon’s lawyer Vic Wozny said: “Since the Styles moved, there has not been a peep about anything being done wrong by my client. There have never been any complaints about other neighbours or complaints from them about him. The court can be satisfied that this man would cause no trouble to anybody else in the future.”
But sentencing JP Christine Pugh told Kenyon: “You cannot contact them by any means whatsoever. If you see them accidentally, cross the road. If you breach this you will find yourself back before the court.”
Source Agencies
