Film-maker wins legal battle over island home
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A FILM-MAKER whose island holiday home "disappeared" while he was abroad welcomed a judge's ruling yesterday that he is entitled to a new house or its equivalent market value.
Neville Presho (61), from Holywood, Co Down, claimed his house on Tory Island, off the Donegal coast, was demolished and used as a car park by an adjacent hotel.
He brought a High Court action against the hotel, Ostan Thoraigh Comhlacht Teoranta, and its owner, Patrick Doohan, for trespass and damage to the 19th-century stone house.
Mr Justice Roderick Murphy ruled Mr Presho was entitled to damages for trespass and interference with his property. He was satisfied there was trespass also in relation to the use of a septic tank on the property for the hotel.
In a statement issued through his solicitor last night, hotelier Mr Doohan said the judgment was "unclear and contradictory". His lawyers would appeal to the Supreme Court.
Speaking in Letterkenny, Mr Presho said he was satisfied with the judge's ruling.
"This was never about retribution. It was about restitution. The ruling has been made in my favour. The truth came out, but we will have to wait until October to know what the amount will be," he told the Irish Independent.
Mr Presho bought the house in 1982 and left for New Zealand six years later. He returned in 1994, and claimed in court that he was astounded to find a car park and septic tank for the hotel where his house had once stood.
Remedy
The judge said the equitable remedy would not, however, be the reinstatement of the original house but the provision of "a comparable dwelling" on Tory Island or the open-market value of a comparable dwelling.
He adjourned the matter of which option should be chosen until next October.
The court heard Mr Presho's house was damaged by fire in unexplained circumstances on January 14, 1993. It was removed over the following nine months, and, by the time of Mr Presho's return, in July 1994, there was no trace of it.
Mr Justice Murphy said Mr Doohan's claim that the property "simply collapsed" a year after the fire due to stormy conditions "lacked credibility".
Photographic evidence of the site pointed to the use of levelling equipment rather than storm collapse, as did photos of rubble from it. The only person on the island with a JCB was Mr Doohan, the judge said.
The judge accepted Mr Doohan's evidence that he had nothing to do with the fire, but said, on the balance of probability, it was started maliciously and exacerbated by the presence of combustibles that the builder put in the house.
The judge found no evidence to warrant a prosecution by gardai in relation to the destruction of the house, and said there was no evidence that it was demolished overnight.
It was accepted Mr Doohan accidentally reversed his JCB into the house and later cleared away the rubble on behalf of Donegal County Council.
- Tim Healy and Anita Guidera
