Is this classed as invasion of privacy?

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[Deleted User]
[Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
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in Marriage, relationships & families
We have a family living next door to us with two young kids, a boy aged around 10 and a girl aged around 4/5 ish. They have a trampoline at the end of their garden and quite often stand on it and peer into our garden, the boy more so than the girl. We have patio doors from our lounge to the garden so they can also see into our house. A couple of weeks ago the boy was stood on the trampoline and just kept looking at us whilst we were sat in our lounge. Another time he was stood on the top of a climbing frame and was staring into the kitchen when I was sat at the table.

I appreciate kids will be kids, but I just find it a bit weird. I read an article a few months back about how people peering over the fence and into your garden/house can be classed as invasion of privacy, but I wasn’t sure how much weight the article carried. I'm hoping the boy will grow out of it soon anyway but I would just like to be aware of the laws should the issue persist or become worst.
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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 4,176 Forumite
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    What do you want to achieve? You want them prosecuted? They're kids !!!!!!. Could understand if it was the parents!
  • Comms69
    Comms69 Posts: 14,229 Forumite
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    Deleted_User wrote: »
    We have a family living next door to us with two young kids, a boy aged around 10 and a girl aged around 4/5 ish. They have a trampoline at the end of their garden and quite often stand on it and peer into our garden, the boy more so than the girl. We have patio doors from our lounge to the garden so they can also see into our house. A couple of weeks ago the boy was stood on the trampoline and just kept looking at us whilst we were sat in our lounge. Another time he was stood on the top of a climbing frame and was staring into the kitchen when I was sat at the table.

    I appreciate kids will be kids, but I just find it a bit weird. I read an article a few months back about how people peering over the fence and into your garden/house can be classed as invasion of privacy, but I wasn’t sure how much weight the article carried. I'm hoping the boy will grow out of it soon anyway but I would just like to be aware of the laws should the issue persist or become worst.
    Obviously not. It's children being curious.
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741 Forumite
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    Are you nudists?



    You must be very interesting in some way. I taught 10/11 year olds for 35 years. I found it a daily struggle to keep some of them attentive for more than a few minutes at a time!


    It's bit late now I'm retired, but what's the secret?
  • Comms69
    Comms69 Posts: 14,229 Forumite
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    _shel wrote: »
    What do you want to achieve? You want them prosecuted? They're kids !!!!!!. Could understand if it was the parents!


    As far as I can tell the only offence may be one of harassment, which wouldn't apply as the offence requires the defendant to "know (or ought to know)" that this behaviour.... - which a 10 year old clearly isn't expected to.


    There's no offence of invasion of privacy - not a clue what the OP was talking about (helpfully they didn't provide a source)


    * there is a civil action that can be taken for invasion of privacy, but it typically applies to commercial of government entities
  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596 Forumite
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    "The man next door keeps on staring out of his window at our children. What can we do about it?"
  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,557 Forumite
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    Deleted_User wrote: »
    A couple of weeks ago the boy was stood on the trampoline and just kept looking at us whilst we were sat in our lounge.

    Another time he was stood on the top of a climbing frame and was staring into the kitchen when I was sat at the table.
    davidmcn wrote: »
    "The man next door keeps on staring out of his window at our children. What can we do about it?"

    "Tell your kids to get down from the trampoline and climbing frame?"

    Deleted_User - the best thing would be to ignore him - with luck, he'll get bored and find something else to do.
  • Soot2006
    Soot2006 Posts: 2,167 Forumite
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    Maybe have a chat with the parents? They might not know the kids are doing it. They might not care, OR they might turn the situation into a teachable moment about social etiquette and staring :)




    (they must lead a boring life to stare at you like this)


    ((I often wear very little in my own home - so the kids would have a fright. They probably don't know how wrinkly old fat naked bodies are))
  • Margot123
    Margot123 Posts: 1,116 Forumite
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    The boy could have a medical condition that you are unaware of that causes him to fixate on certain things. It might be you, it could be your wall paper, pet parrot, who knows?

    Look around you. Maybe you aren't that interesting and it's something else fascinating them.

    Why not talk to the children? Ask them if there's a problem. Get chatting but be friendly.

    Very rarely children can be used by adults to intimidate/annoy neighbours but you haven't mentioned any disputes so not sure it could be anything like that.
  • WeAreGhosts
    WeAreGhosts Posts: 3,100 Forumite
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    I can appreciate how annoying it is. My [adult] neighbours stare over my fence regularly.
    With kids, though, they're just nosy and it's not usually intentionally nasty.
    Have you tried waving? My gran did this with kids she had peering over the fence and they were so shocked that they didn't do it again.
  • need_an_answer
    need_an_answer Posts: 2,812 Forumite
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    What's this got to do with house buying or renting?

    Take it to the families board and gain their perspective on it.

    OP if you are genuinely that worried about it have a word with your local community policeman.
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