Gay couple win $15,000 compensation from bullying neighbours
A Vancouver family has been forced to pay $15,000 to a gay couple following two years of homophobic abuse.
Rod Boggs and his partner of 30 years Bill Hart moved to the condo in 2006. According to their testimony, their neighbours, the Harrisons, them that gays “weren’t welcome”
According to the Vancouver Sun, the family went on to play loud music, report false accusations to the police, tried to instigate fights, deflated the couple’s tires, and threatened their to kill their cat.
The Harrisons denied all charges, claiming the couple had made them remove their basketball hoop, trampoline, glass sound barrier and other furniture from the front veranda.
In his statement at the British Columbia Supreme Court, Justice Doug Halfyard said that although these constituted “rational reasons” for the family to resent Boggs and Hart, the Harrisons had still behaved in “malicious and intolerable” ways and would have to pay $7,500 to each man in damages.
During the six-day trial, Hart claimed Mrs Harrison told him: “You two have ruined this place. It is disgusting. And so are you. I have so much on you. You are going to be very sorry.”
However, Boggs and Hart were told that they would not receive greater damages because “to a limited extent” they had provoked the Harrisons.
