Lawyer sues Duke of Westminster’s company over ‘pimps and three-day parties’ at Mayfair property

A company owned by the Duke of Westminster is being sued by a businessman over claims a Mayfair property it owns has played host to pimps and three-day parties.

Peter Clifford, a millionaire lawyer, lives in a £4.2 million mews house in the heart of Mayfair, London, next door to a block of flats owned through a company by Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster and a godfather to Prince George.

Mr Clifford, 62, claims he has had to endure the noise of three-day parties, drugs being dealt and even prostitution at the block, which is in a “high-class” area where some of the UK’s most expensive townhouses are located.

Mr Clifford says things got so bad that his master bedroom was rendered “uninhabitable” by the noise outside, while a “pimp” once stood just three metres away from his window.

He blames the problem on some of the flats next door having been sub-let and on short terms, making the block attractive to “organised criminals”, and on the duke’s company, Grosvenor West End Properties, for not doing enough to stamp it out.

He is now suing the company at Central London County Court, claiming damages for “distress” and for the £1.5 million he says the “nuisance” has knocked off the value of his home.

But Grosvenor denies liability, saying it took “reasonable” steps to abate the issues at the flats, Bloomfield Court, which are next to Mr Clifford’s Bourdon Street home.

It says it wrote to tenants to warn them about their responsibilities to neighbours, employed a security guard and installed CCTV in October last year, after which the problems were much improved.

It also informed the police and Westminster City Council of anti-social behaviour concerns and had taken steps beyond its actual legal obligations to tackle the issues, with problem tenants moved on.

Grosvenor West End is part of the Grosvenor Group, which traces its history back to 1677 and owns huge amounts of prime real estate in the centre of London.

It is owned by Hugh Grosvenor, the seventh Duke of Westminster, whose family’s wealth has been estimated at £10 billion.

Anti-social behavior ‘inconsistent with area’

Outlining the case, Tiffany Scott KC, Mr Clifford’s barrister, said that Bourdon Street has been described by estate agents as “one of the most prestigious” addresses in Mayfair and a “centre for contemporary art”.

As well as owning the Bloomfield Court block of 12 flats, Grosvenor is also the freeholder of Mr Clifford’s house next door in the “quiet” residential street, where he moved in 2003.

But she said anti-social activities had been linked to the block over the years which were “inconsistent with the quiet and high-class residential character of the area”.

They included drug dealing, prostitution, unauthorised short-term lettings, loud parties and even threats of physical violence to neighbouring residents.

And she claimed Grosvenor had not done enough to tackle the problems.

“The defendant has taken no measures to stop a very regular stream of people from entering the building, despite knowing that they are visiting either to occupy the flats on prohibited short-term holiday lets or else for the purposes of drug-taking, partying, prostitution or other nuisance-causing activities,” she said.

“The defendant allows them up the entrance steps, into the courtyard, into the building, into the lift, and through the corridors.

“The people about whose behaviour the claimant complains, as well as the problematic behaviour itself, are emanating from the common parts of the building.”

‘This block is perfect for organised crime’

Giving evidence, Mr Clifford said he had seen men going into the block with prostitutes, drug deals taking place in public and drunk people “totally out of control”.

He had to install CCTV cameras to deter bad behaviour and had retreated from the master bedroom at the front of his house due to the disturbances outside Bloomfield Court.

“This particular block is perfect for organised crime,” he told the judge.

“It has no 24-hour concierge. It is the type of property that is targeted for exactly the kind of nuisance we received.”

For Grosvenor, barrister Thomas Braithwaite said the worst of Mr Clifford’s complaints had reached a “nadir” in 2020 and 2021 but that things had been much improved after the cameras were installed.

The judge is expected to give a ruling on the case at a later date.