‘Trespassing’ wedding planner and her husband evicted after they refused to get out of £7m farmhouse owned by medical cannabis tycoon nicknamed ‘Dr Pot’ are handed £250,000 court bill

A ‘difficult’ luxury wedding organiser and her husband who refused to get out of a tycoon’s £7million country mansion have been handed a £250,000 court bill after a judge ruled they were ‘trespassing’.

Alo Brake, 58, and husband Andrew, 68, were sued by medicinal cannabis entrepreneur and wedding venue owner Dr Geoffrey Guy’s company after they refused leave his Dorset country pile, Axnoller House, for over three years.

Sprawling West Axnoller Farm – where the mansion is sited – was previously owned by Mrs Brake, who with her husband transformed it from a derelict state to a high-class wedding venue, where actor Sean Bean married his fifth wife, Ashley Moore.

However, the credit crunch of 2008 forced the couple into looking for outside investment, resulting in the farm and wedding business eventually being sold to a company run by Dr Guy, a medicinal cannabis multimillionaire nicknamed ‘Dr Pot’.

Initially, the Brakes continued to work for him after his 2017 purchase, living in a cottage on the land or in the farm’s ‘jewel in the crown’ Axnoller House when it was not needed for an event.

Alo Brake (front), 58, and husband Andrew, 68, were sued by Dr Geoffrey Guy’s company

But they later fell out with Dr Guy and in November 2018 were fired and told to get out of the house, which is set in the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

However, they refused to leave until April last year.

Now after a judge found they were ‘trespassing’ on Dr Guy’s company’s property and had spun ‘a web of lies’ in court, they have been ordered to pay over £250,000 in damages.

Ordering them to pay the damages to Dr Guy’s company at the High Court, Judge Paul Matthews slammed the couple for being ‘difficult’ with their former boss and landlord.

Dr Guy made his multimillion-pound fortune after founding GW pharmaceuticals, which is known for its multiple sclerosis treatment derived from the cannabis plant, before going into the wedding business.

According to a previous ruling by the judge in the long court battle, Mrs Brake bought the picturesque farm, near Beaminster, Dorset, in September 2004.

At the time it was derelict, but with the help of her husband, she transformed it into a holiday letting business and high-class wedding venue, with adjoining equestrian ‘arena.’

However, the credit crunch of 2008 forced the couple into looking for outside investment, leading them to form a partnership with a businesswoman in 2010 and contribute the farm as their stake.

The partnership ultimately failed and the farm was in 2015 sold by receivers to another company, a corporate vehicle for Mrs Brake’s friend, The Hon Saffron Foster, daughter of the third Lord Vestey.

M edicinal cannabis entrepreneur and wedding venue owner Dr Geoffrey Guy’s company sued the couple after they refused leave his country pile, Axnoller House, for over three years (Dr Guy is pictured)

The farm was then sold again in July 2017, passing to Dr Guy’s company, The Chedington Court Estate Ltd, for more than £7million.

Initially, Mrs Brake continued running the wedding business on behalf of his firm, but the relationship between the parties ‘broke down’ and the Brakes were both sacked and told to leave in November 2018.

But they refused, claiming they had a right to stay there because Mr Brake was an agricultural tenant and relying on alleged promises that they would be allowed to stay on.

At the High Court in February last year, Judge Matthews ruled Mr Brake was not an agricultural tenant, because the farmland he tended was simply a ‘stage set’ for the wedding business.

There had also never been an assurance that they could stay on, he said.

In a new judgment, he has now ordered the couple to pay Dr Guy’s company £236,818.27 in damages for their trespass on the property after being told to leave in 2018 and before they eventually moved out last year.

He said that, in her evidence, Mrs Brake had told the court that, had Dr Guy ‘treated us properly,’ they would have moved out of the house and into a cottage on the farm.

But that only went to show that, in fighting against their removal from the house ‘in response to Dr Guy’s behaviour,’ the Brakes ‘were simply being difficult,’ he found.

The judge said the couple had occupied the house personally, not even allowing access for routine inspection and maintenance, and also the equestrian arena.

But they had also excluded Dr Guy’s events company, Chedington Events Ltd, from land immediately outside the house, to the detriment of the business, he said.

The pair refused to get out of a tycoon’s £7million country mansion for over three years 

‘This included a lawn, a terrace, a gravel path and car parking area and a bridle path. These were previously and – but for the defendants’ trespass – would have been used for the purposes of the wedding and events business which the claimant carried on. In particular, the lawn in front of the house would have been used for the wedding ceremony.

‘To avoid confrontations, the claimant sensibly did not attempt to use them, but it continued to maintain them at its expense, in order to maintain the ‘look’ of the whole property for its business.

‘I find that this amounted in practice to exclusion of the claimant from those areas.

‘The defendants did not exclude the claimant from other parts of West Axnoller Farm, including the party barn and the other two holiday houses.’

But he continued: ‘They had the benefit of the use of the property from almost the end of 2018 to the spring of 2022, during which they had no need to pay for anywhere else to live or indeed for the utilities needed to run it.

‘The evidence is that they drove, walked and rode horses over it as they wished. They deliberately deprived the claimant of the use of the house and the arena during the same time.

‘Lastly, the defendants kept the claimant at bay during this time by obtaining repeated adjournments of the trial, eventually making an entirely unsuccessful case to remain, buttressed by what I found to be ‘a web of lies’ at trial.’

He ordered them to pay £236,818.27 damages, with interest running at eight per cent from January 2019 – meaning the bill will hit about £250,000.

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