A Kenilworth landlord and NHS doctor found guilty of illegal eviction has been fined nearly £9,000.

Dr Amy Eskander was found guilty at Warwick Crown Court in August after jurors heard she changed the locks on a room she was letting out while her tenant was at work.

Eskander was sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court on 8 December where she was ordered to pay a fine of £2,000, a compensation award of £3,600 to the tenant, costs of £3,000 to Warwick District Council and a victim surcharge of £190.

During the five-day trial in the summer, the court heard that Eskander rented out a bedroom in her two-bed flat on Station Road between February 2019 and September 2020, keeping a locked bedroom in the apartment for herself.

The tenant was asked in June 2020 for a rent increase, and when he said he could not afford it, Eskander told him he had to leave and sent him a text message telling him he had to vacate by 12 August 2020.

The tenant continued to live at the apartment and pay his rent and on 18 September 2020 whilst he was at work, he received a text from Dr Eskander to confirm that she had changed the locks and removed his possessions from the apartment.

The tenant alerted the private sector housing team at Warwick District Council, which had already issued a warning letter to Eskander advising her that she needed to obtain a possession order from the county court if she wanted to evict her tenant.

Eskander had tried to argue that she shared the flat in Kenilworth with her tenant as her principal or only home and therefore he should not be afforded legal protection from eviction.

However, the court heard evidence that Eskander had signed an assured shorthold tenancy at a premises in London and had provided evidence in official documents that her home was in London and later in Plymouth.

The prosecution's case was that she rarely visited the apartment, and the tenant often sent her mail onto addresses where she was living in London and Plymouth in connection with her work placements at local hospitals.

'Unattractive Arrogance'

Sentencing, Recorder Brand KC said he felt the tenant would have left of his own accord had she not forced him out.

"In your correspondence with the council, you displayed an arrogance which was unattractive," he said.

"In his last few weeks [the tenant] had no heating or hot water, and while you did not cause this you did little to help it.

"You ejected him from his rented home on a Friday evening because you felt you were entitled to have your way.

"I have suspicions that your text that Friday at 16.20 was deliberately timed to align with closure of council offices.

"It is an aggravating factor that you evicted in the midst of the Covid pandemic. You kept his deposit and the rent he had paid in advance, which he was entitled to.

"You had a trial which of course you are entitled to but the consequences are that (the tenant) had to give evidence, during which his credibility was challenged."