Architect Dr Karin Elliott has been struck off for a minimum of two years after the Architects Registration Board found her guilty of unacceptable professional conduct over a series of misleading accusations against her neighbours in Norwich.
The tribunal ruled that in 2024 she used inflammatory language and made a series of misleading and potentially damaging accusations against several neighbours, with scant regard to their accuracy. The board said her actions were misleading, lacking integrity and dishonest.
Accusations of racial harassment and gender violence
One neighbour was accused of racial harassment after Dr Elliott falsely claimed he had wielded a chainsaw in her garden. In a planning form submitted to Norwich City Planning Portal in March 2024, she wrote: 'I begged him to turn off his chainsaw and explained that I considered it to be racial harassment.'
Her partner, Francois Girardin, told the tribunal that none of the neighbours said anything directly racist. However, he said he made an inference of racism because 'sometimes a Union Jack would appear' and a wall had been built after the US President had talked about building a big wall to keep out immigrants. He added that whenever an England team 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 a neighbour had repeatedly driven across her driveway and that, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the phallic symbol of his car was a manifestation of gender violence. The tribunal said this claim underscored how tenuously she constructed serious accusations and how casually she dispensed them.
Planning application and letters to residents
The architect had applied for permission to install CCTV cameras on her property in December 2023 amid the neighbour rows. In a February 2024 letter to local residents asking for support, 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'.
She also wrote that another neighbour called them a 'piece of s***', 'disgusting' or exclaimed 'the stench' regularly, and claimed he had threatened to hit one of them over the head with a hammer after being asked to desist. She added: '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.'
A third neighbour was accused of singing Tragedy by the Bee Gees from a balcony overlooking their home after the death of her father, and of building an 'ugly concrete foundation' and using influence at the local council 'to escape justice'. In the letter, she 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.'
Impact on neighbours and previous misconduct
In cross-examination, Dr Elliott said: 'I think I'd give this letter a serious editing if I did it again.' She made further allegations in a planning appeal form to Norwich City Planning Portal in March 2024.
One neighbour told the tribunal that the '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 that they do not spend time in their garden because Dr Elliott and her partner are 'always looking at us', adding that she is an 'absolute disgrace to her profession'.
The tribunal found that Dr Elliott's conduct followed a previous finding of unacceptable professional conduct in 2021 for calling neighbours 'racists and Nazis' and making offensive references to their physical characteristics and mental health.
