Two squatters who moved into an elderly woman’s 1.5m home while she stayed with her sick sister have been jailed.
Milly Martinson’s home of 60 years in Bayswater, west London, was found in such a state it nearly killed her, Horseferry Road citizen property insurance corporation heard.
Antonio Pompili, 29, and Emmanuel Lamy, 24, were sentenced to five and four months for illegally being on closed premises and extracting insurance landlord property rented
.
But no-one has been charged for the damage to the property.
Police said doors had been taken off hinges, windows smashed and paintings damaged.
It is still boarded up, nearly four months after the men were removed.
Ms Martinson, 85, who is staying with her sister, fears repairing the property will cost thousands and says the insurance has lapsed.
‘Very sad and scared’
In a statement she told the court the house had been filled with happy memories for her, but when she first saw it after the squatters had been removed it nearly killed her.
“She felt very sad and scared, nothing like this had every happened to her before,” said prosecutor Christine Athanasius.
“She doesn’t have any fight left in her and she doesn’t look forward to anything any more.
“All she wanted for the rest of her life was to live in her own home and not be disturbed by anybody else.”
Ms Martinson had lived in her Bayswater home for 60 years
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Both Pompili, an Italian who had hoped to find work as a computer programmer, and Lamy, who came from France to find work as an agent insurance personal property
, said they did not know the property was occupied.
They said they had been told by others at a hostel they could stay at the house if they cleaned up a room.
Both men admitted being among squatters at the property. They pleaded guilty to illegally extracting electricity from the property and unlawfully being in closed premises.
Representing Pompili, Yimi Yangye said her client, who had been in the house for about 10 days, was “very remorseful”.
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I am afraid to go to the place
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Alex Rose, for Lamy, said his client had gone to the house when it was already a squat and had previously been a “law abiding citizen”.
Lamy, of Princes Square, Bayswater, had only been there two days when he was arrested, the court heard. He is appealing against his sentence.
Sentencing them, district judge Quentin Purdy said it was clear the use of the property was “beyond anything that would vaguely be described as acceptable.”
Last week Matteo Barbarini, 27, was jailed for four months after admitting similar offences.
Outside court Ms Martinson, a retired Royal British Legion secretary, said: “I am afraid to go to the place,gulfstream property and casualty insurance
at night now - I don’t know who will be running out of the rooms.”
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