Landlady's relief after winning eviction appeal against serial rapist » Housing » 24dash.com

A landlady wept tears of relief today after winning an appeal against a serial rapist who sued her for clearing his flat after he was arrested.

Melody Goymer, a 60-year-old grandmother from Pevensey Bay, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, feared she would be financially ruined if the judgment had not been overturned at Brighton County Court.

She faced soaring legal costs of up to £30,000 after launching the appeal against a ruling that she had unlawfully terminated Thomas Cope's tenancy by failing to seek a court order for possession of the flat.

A judge sitting at Eastbourne County Court in August last year awarded Cope £750 in damages and ordered Mrs Goymer to return his remaining belongings to his wife.

However, His Honour Judge Hollis sitting at Brighton County Court today, ruled that Mrs Goymer and her husband, David, had reasonable grounds to believe that Cope had abandoned the property and was unlikely to return.

He said that the judge presiding over the earlier hearing therefore had a "flaw" in his judgment as he had not heard all the evidence which suggested this.

Judge Hollis said he did not hear that Mrs Goymer had been told by a member of staff at Cope's solicitor's when he was on remand that he was only likely to be released from custody "when pigs fly".

The previous hearing, which was fast-tracked, also did not hear evidence concerning the state that Mrs Goymer found the flat in when she let herself in, prior to finding out that Cope had been arrested.

"It had all the appearance of a place that had been abandoned," Judge Hollis said. "The majority of the tenant's possessions had gone."

"There was no bed and it was generally in a disgusting and filthy condition."

Concluding, he said: "On the basis of the evidence that I have heard the appeal will be allowed and the judgment set aside."

Cope, a 55-year-old former debt collector, had lived alone in the two-bedroom flat in Hailsham since March 2006 under a shorthold tenancy agreement.

The rent of £525 a month was paid largely by the housing benefit he was entitled to but Cope made up the remainder, the court heard.

Unbeknown to Mrs Goymer, he was arrested on suspicion of rape just a month after moving in, although it was not until the following December that he was actually charged and remanded in custody.

Mrs Goymer, who did not know about Cope's latest arrest, gained access to his flat around two weeks after she last saw him and after repeatedly failing to contact him.

The scenes of squalor inside suggested to her that he was no longer living there but she found a letter from Cope's solicitor, whom she contacted.

She was not told the nature of the offence Cope was at that stage alleged to have committed, but she was left in no doubt of the seriousness of it.

Mrs Goymer said she then decided to clear his possessions from the flat and placed them in storage two weeks later.

When his case came to court in June 2007, Cope was jailed for life for the rape of a 19-year-old woman.

Mrs Goymer learnt that Cope was first jailed for rape for four years in 1976, and has further convictions for rape, attempted rape and indecent assault.

She was shocked to hear that she was then being sued by him in a publicly funded case while he was serving his prison sentence.

At the hearing last August the £750 damages she was ordered to pay Cope was the minimum amount the judge could allow. But she was also told she must pay Cope's legal fees on top of her own.

Mrs Goymer, who runs a hairdressing business and rents out two flats, is still paying around £60 a week for Cope's possessions to be kept in storage, more than two years since she first put them there.

Due to the state Cope left the flat in, Mrs Goymer said she also had to spend around £2,000 renovating and redecorating it before new tenants could move in.

Judge Hollis said it was now Cope's responsibility to make arrangements for his belongings to be collected.

Speaking after the hearing, Mrs Goymer wept and said she was "relieved" that the judgment had been overturned.

"We can get back on with our lives now," she added.

Mr Goymer, 63, said he still intended to present their local MP with a petition with more than 1,000 signatures on it against the way they had been treated.

"We will still pursue it to try to get the law changed so other people don't have this problem," he said.