People News

Daphne Guinness ordered to pay damages

Sep 27, 2012, 6:11 GMT

Daphne Guinness

Daphne Guinness has been ordered to pay her neighbours substantial damages.

A New York judge has ruled the fashion designer responsible for flooding Karim and Tina Samii's £7 million apartment - located below her own property in the former Stanhope Hotel in Manhattan - after allowing her bath water to overflow on three separate occasions.

The style icon told the New York Post: 'All I have ever wanted is to make amends and make this right. I've always been happy to pay for their damage, and have already been doing so. I would never intentionally flood their apartment. I by no means want to be a bad neighbour. I have totally waterproofed the place and now it is the safest apartment in New York.'

Justice Richard Braun rejected her neighbours' bid to secure $1 million in damages amid claims they felt 'terrorised' and suffered 'emotional distress' at the hands of the socialite.

Their bid to secure a court order to prevent her from ever bathing in her property again was also denied.

The couple claimed that the flooding resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and discovered that flaws in the renovation of Daphne's stainless-steel bathroom floor had worsened the leaks.

A future hearing will determine how much the former model owes the couple.