A property feud that has escalated into a Supreme Court trial heard that one side in the dispute told their expatriate neighbour that he and his family were “not good enough” to live in their neighbourhood.

The matter between defendants Simon and Deirdre Storey and plaintiff Samuel Andrew Banks, husband of former premier Dame Pamela Gordon, concerns allegations by both sides of intrusions on the other’s property in the Inglewood neighbourhood of Paget.

The case, which concerns a boundary dispute between the neighbours over the removal of trees and the encroachment of a driveway, continued yesterday with Dame Pamela cross-examined by Keith Robinson, representing the Storeys.

Dame Pamela was accused of making “various insulting remarks” to Mr Storey during a June 2023 confrontation between the two, in which the defendant was said to have blocked her car with his scooter on the road outside their properties.

Mr Robinson told the court that during the “heated exchange”, in which Mr Banks’s gardeners were working on a disputed strip of land on the property boundaries, she told Mr Storey that he “did not belong in Inglewood” and did not appear to be “the right caste”.

Dame Pamela called it “a delusional statement”.

She added: “I never said that.“

Mr Robinson countered that she had and said that “from the way you treat Mr Storey and his family, you do not consider them good enough for Inglewood”.

Dame Pamela strongly denied the remarks and added: “You are talking to a Black woman who grew up in a segregated Bermuda.”

Mr Robinson said that Dame Pamela had made reference several times while giving evidence during the trial to “the way things are done in Bermuda”, and pointed out that Mr Storey came from overseas.

“Your position or your attitude is that he is not good enough to be living in Inglewood, and that’s at the root of this dispute,” he added.

Dame Pamela answered: “You are absolutely wrong.”

Mr Banks has accused the Storeys of removing woodland on his property to build a road, while the Storeys maintain he built a gate partially on their property.

The Storeys have also accused their neighbours of trespassing.

Under re-examination by Jeffrey Elkinson, lawyer for Mr Banks, Dame Pamela accused Mr Storey of several planning infractions in which he would “do first and then ask later”.

She said she had written a “horrified” letter to the planning department in 2021 after spotting — using Google Maps — the “rape of our property” with the building of the access road.

Earlier in the hearing, Mr Robinson accused Dame Pamela of behaving as “a self-appointed planning inspector” by writing to planning, when she accused Mr Storey of attempting to deceive with inaccurate property images in a May 2021 application to have solar panels installed.

Dame Pamela said her complaints to planning were her responsibility as a Bermudian to highlight non-compliance with the law.

“If you see something, you say something,” she added. “It’s inculcated in me and it’s not personal about Mr Storey.”

Mr Robinson told her she had not taken issue with any other property owners on Inglewood Lane.

He added: “It appears to him that you are acting unreasonably and vexatiously towards him.

“You effectively want to persecute him.”

Dame Pamela said: “I don’t wish to persecute him. I don’t even know Mr Storey.”

Mr Robinson said his client had “accepted that he made a mistake” with regard to trees removed on Mr Banks’s property and had rectified it.

Dame Pamela said: “When you make a mistake, you go and get it corrected and regularised right away.

“You do not make a mistake one, two, three, four, five times. At that point, it’s not a mistake. It’s intentional and it’s calculated.”

Mr Robinson told her: “It’s not your role to enforce planning regulations.”

She answered: “It’s every Bermudian’s role.”

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