Why I demand a PROPER apology from my neighbour, the streaking Air Marshal: Businessman claims the RAF’s second-in-command gave his family a VERY unwelcome fly-by… but is there more to the story than meets the eye?
Nestling on the edge of the Chiltern Downs and just a short drive from the upmarket towns of Henley and Caversham, there are fewer more desirable places to live than the rural hamlet of Cane End.
Among those who have chosen to put down roots in this part of Oxfordshire are the Savile Row tailor who stitched Prince Harry’s wedding outfit and Gavin & Stacey actress Joanna Page.
But another long-term resident, who has made something of a name for himself this week, is Air Marshal Andrew Turner CBE, one of the most senior military officers in the country and the RAF’s second in command.
The 54-year-old married father-of-two has been suspended following a complaint from neighbours that he roamed naked in the paddock at the back of the £1.5 million thatched cottage he shares with his schoolteacher wife Catherine.
Why was the Air Marshal, who has enjoyed a glittering career, seen active service in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and served as a Chief of Defence Staff liaison officer in Washington DC, walking around without any clothes on an unseasonably cool summer’s day? And is there more than meets the eye to what happened?
The baffling incident six months ago also led to a police investigation. While highly decorated helicopter pilot Mr Turner wasn’t arrested or charged, last week he was instructed by Thames Valley Police to write a letter of apology to his neighbours and their teenage daughter in a bid to settle the matter by means of a ‘community resolution’ order.
Alas, the brief, typed, one-line dispatch which was delivered by registered post last Friday afternoon to the home of businessman Simon Herbert has only fanned the flames of this saga.
‘I apologise for any inadvertent and unintentional upset that may have resulted from activity on our property,’ read the note, which contained no opening salutation or sign-off and was signed with just a monogram.
‘It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,’ says businessman Mr Herbert, who is also 54 and whose 52-year-old partner Lesley Stevens and 18-year-old stepdaughter also say they saw the Air Marshal.
He says they have been left deeply distressed by the incident in August last year which happened just days before the RAF launched Operation Pitting and began airlifting British nationals and Afghan civilians from Kabul after the Taliban seized control.
‘He didn’t even put his name on the letter. It was like a kick in the gut and I’m not accepting it.’
As well as protesting to the Crown Prosecution Service and demanding further action now be taken, Mr Herbert has also decided to give his version of events that day last summer, not to mention the escalating tensions leading up to it.
‘All we wanted was a proper apology,’ he adds. ‘If Andrew had done that at the time this would have been over six months ago but this response is arrogant and patronising.’
‘It’s not worth the paper it’s written on,’ says businessman Mr Herbert, who is also 54 and whose 52-year-old partner Lesley Stevens and 18-year-old stepdaughter also say they saw the Air Marshal
So why was the Air Marshal, who has enjoyed a glittering career, seen active service in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and served as a Chief of Defence Staff liaison officer in Washington DC, walking around without any clothes on an unseasonably cool summer’s day? And is there more than meets the eye to what happened?
It would seem so . . .
The Mail can reveal that while relations were amicable between the two couples when they first became neighbours, the nine years or so since have been punctuated with moments of tension, largely over land and, more recently, a whopping great five-bedroom extension Mr Herbert is having built.
As for the incident itself, a couple of days earlier, Mr Turner, who was made a Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in the 2019 New Year’s Honours’ List, had clocked off on annual leave, tweeting a photograph of the pile of books he was planning to read and writing: ‘#FamilyFirst — time to get away from work, get off the grid, recharge.’
But at around 5pm on August 10, Mr Herbert was fixing a fence around a chicken enclosure when he claims to have seen Mr Turner standing naked in his [Mr Turner’s] paddock which is visible from the Herberts’ property.
He was also seen, so it is claimed, by Mr Herbert’s partner Lesley and her 18-year-old daughter, who were sitting in the garden. In their statements to Thames Valley Police, Mr Herbert and Lesley claimed Mr Turner was in a state of arousal and made no attempt to cover himself.
‘I was saying to him: ‘What the hell are you doing? Are you having a laugh?’ ‘ Mr Herbert tells me. ‘But he didn’t say anything. It was weird.’
The senior military officer, Mr Herbert says, walked slowly and silently back to his own garden, crossing a gravelled drive which separates his paddock from his garden before entering the house. As he reached the back door, Mr Herbert says he momentarily crouched down and bared his buttocks towards him.
The drive, Mr Herbert points out, is a public right of way and used by dog walkers and parents walking children to school, while the paddock is sometimes played in by the eight-year-old child of one of their neighbours.
At first, says Mr Herbert, he and his partner were concerned for Mr Turner’s well-being, later telling police they wondered, perhaps, if he’d had ‘some sort of medical episode’.
Mr Herbert phoned Turner’s wife, Catherine, who teaches at a prep school in nearby Reading, and was away from the house at the time. He claims that after ringing off to check in with her own husband, she called back and accused him of lying.
Nestling on the edge of the Chiltern Downs and just a short drive from the upmarket towns of Henley and Caversham, there are fewer more desirable places to live than the rural hamlet of Cane End
Mr Herbert then contacted the police who in turn advised him to speak to the RAF.
‘At first we spoke to the HR department because we were worried about his welfare but they said it would have to be dealt with by the military police,’ says Mr Herbert. In the end the matter was handed to detectives from Thames Valley Police who submitted evidence to the CPS.
Mr Turner is understood to have told police that he was looking for his dog’s tennis ball at the time of the incident and that he had taken off his clothes because he was hot.
Mr Herbert refutes this: ‘If I’d come across him naked with his wife, sunbathing or having a picnic or whatever, and I’d seen them I’d have had a little laugh and left them to it. He wasn’t sunbathing. He was exposing himself in front of a man and two women.’
Mr Turner’s solicitor has told the Mail that Mr Herbert’s claims are ‘vexatious’ and pointed out that the case had not been prosecuted despite ‘a lengthy police investigation and review by the CPS’.
The couples were on friendly terms when they became neighbours ten years ago.
Mr Herbert and Lesley were invited round for an evening meal, and he says that for years they gave the Turners fresh eggs from their chickens, refusing to take a penny for them.
He says he also spent £2,000 of his own money to create an alley at the edge of his property to give the Turners and their dogs easy access to open farmland beyond.
He claims that over the years the Turners have asked several times to buy some of his 18 acres, requests he has turned down.
Nor are the Turners happy about the five-bedroom extension Mr Herbert is building to his house, for which he has planning permission.
Mr Turner, he says, objected to the plans, saying the extension was not in keeping with the character of the original house and expressing noise concern about the works.
Significantly, in his police statement, Mr Herbert says that when he spoke to Catherine Turner on the phone, on the day of the incident, she is alleged to have told him: ‘You know that mud is going to fly over your fence tonight. I have reported you to the council. You are being investigated.’
South Oxfordshire District Council confirmed to me this week that there is indeed an ongoing investigation into alleged planning breaches on Mr Herbert’s property but would not give details.
Mr Herbert runs several businesses from his property including a petting zoo filled with rescue animals; a barn hired out for children’s parties, school visits and mother and toddler sessions; and four enclosed dog walking areas.
He believes the investigation relates to the barn and that it will ultimately vindicate him.
‘We’ve done everything by the book,’ Mr Herbert says. ‘We have worked hard to build up this place and we have special-needs children coming here, along with people who have had breakdowns. We don’t want people to come here and see a naked man.’
But while he insists ‘we’ve never had a complaint from anyone’ and that he gets on with his neighbours, it’s not hard to see how some noses might be put out of joint by all the goings on at Mr Herbert’s property.
Mr Herbert grew up on a Reading council estate as one of ten children and started his own property business at 18.
‘Our kids don’t go to private school or university,’ he says. ‘We’re just different. But I work hard to make a living. I’m not some kind of crook.’
Air Marshal Andrew Turner, on the other hand, was educated privately at Kingswood School in Bath — and as well as training at RAF Cranwell has studied at the universities of Oxford, Exeter, London and Chennai in India, and has a degree in Oceanography and Cosmology and two Masters in International Relations and Strategic Studies.
He has clocked up 5,100 flying hours on 87 types of aircraft and completed 22 operational tours.
Mr Herbert says that while he knew his neighbour worked for the RAF, he had no idea of his exact rank until he filed his report last August.
‘I don’t care if he is God,’ he says. ‘If I did the same thing I wouldn’t just get a warning.’
It’s not the first time, either, that Mr Turner has found himself caught up in a media scandal. In 2008, he was station commander at RAF Odiham in Hampshire when a 25-year-old Prince William spent ten days at the base learning to fly Chinook helicopters before piloting one of the £10 million aircraft to his cousin Peter Phillips’ three-day Isle of Wight stag party, stopping off in London to collect Prince Harry. The incident caused uproar, with then Group Captain Turner defending the prince’s mission.
Meanwhile, Mr Herbert has also fallen foul of the authorities. In 2018, he was fined £300 at Oxford Magistrates’ Court and ordered to pay £700 costs for running unlicensed kennels at his property after his licence expired.
What way forward, then, for the warring neighbours in this otherwise idyllic corner of England?
While Mr Turner has refused to comment on the affair, Mr Herbert is at pains to point out that he hasn’t received any payment for this story. ‘If I’d wanted to make money I’d have gone to the papers last August,’ he says.
Even now, he says, he would like nothing more than for them all to be able to put the entire sorry business behind them.
‘It’s got out of hand now,’ Mr Herbert says. ‘I’d like to sit in a room with them and say, ‘Let’s resolve this.’ If he came over and apologised I’d accept it, 100 per cent. I don’t want to live like this. I want to move on with my life.’
Source: Read Full Article