Architect struck off after bizarre neighbour dispute over 'phallic symbol' car

A Norwich architect who accused a neighbour of gender violence by using his car as a “phallic symbol” on her driveway has been struck off for making unfounded claims against her neighbours.

Dr Karin Elliott was removed from the register for at least two years by the Architects Registration Board after sending inappropriate communications that amounted to unacceptable professional conduct.

A tribunal decided that she used “inflammatory language, making a series of misleading and potentially damaging accusations” in 2024 regarding her neighbours, “with scant regard to their accuracy”.

The board described the Irish-American architect’s actions as “misleading, lacking integrity and dishonest”.

Ms Elliott accused one neighbour of “racial harassment” through false claims that he wielded a chainsaw in her garden, the tribunal heard.

The architect’s partner, Francois Girardin, told the tribunal that none of the neighbours said “anything directly racist”.

However, Mr Girardin, who is French, made an “inference” of racism from how “sometimes a Union Jack would appear” and “a wall had been constructed after the US President had talked about building a big wall to keep out immigrants”, the tribunal heard.

Mr Girardin also said whenever England played sport, a neighbour would “leave their doors open, and – especially when England played France – their family would cheer for England”.

During cross-examination, Dr Elliott said from “a psychoanalytic perspective” her neighbour repeatedly driving across her driveway with the “phallic symbol” of his car was a manifestation of gender violence.

The tribunal found this “underscored how tenuously she constructed serious accusations against other people, and how casually she dispensed them”.

The architect had made a planning application for the installation of CCTV cameras on her property in December 2023 following disputes with her neighbours.

She wrote a letter to local residents in February 2024 asking for support with the application, and made serious allegations about her neighbours that the tribunal considered to be “dishonest” and “misleading”.

In the letter, she claimed one neighbour had “smashed down several of our historic walls, chopped down many of our historic trees, and built on our property, all without our consent”.

Discussing another neighbour, Dr Elliott wrote: “He calls us either a ‘piece of s***’, ‘disgusting’ and/or exclaims ‘the stench’ regularly.”

In another allegation, the architect wrote: “He threatened to hit one of us over the head with a hammer at one stage, after he was asked to desist.

“He had been starting to build a wall on our property illegally on a Sunday, following Trump’s declaration that he would ‘build a big wall’ to keep out immigrants.

“It is very upsetting. We are Irish/American and French.”

Discussing claims about a third neighbour, Dr Elliott accused her of building an “ugly concrete foundation” and using influence at the local council “to escape justice”.

She also accused her neighbour of singing “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees “from the enormous balcony they built overlooking our home” after the death of her father.

Discussing the three neighbours, Dr Elliott wrote: “We hope that the CCTV might deter them all from further trespassing and further destroying our listed garden, and from any further gender violence and racial harassment.”

In cross-examination, the architect said: “I think I’d give this letter a serious editing if I did it again.”

Dr Elliott made further allegations in a planning appeal form to the Norwich City Planning Portal in March 2024.

Discussing one neighbour in the planning form, she wrote: “I begged him to turn off his chainsaw and explained that I considered it to be racial harassment.”

One neighbour told the tribunal that the architect’s “bizarre accusations of threatening behaviour and the racist accusations have been a source of acute embarrassment and personal discomfort”.

Another said the allegations were “very depressing and upsetting” and they do not spend time in their garden because Ms Elliott and her partner are “always looking at us”, adding that the architect is an “absolute disgrace to her profession”.

The tribunal found that Dr Elliott’s conduct occurred after she had previously been found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct in 2021 for calling neighbours “racists and Nazis”, as well as “making offensive references to their physical characteristics and mental health”.