By Gavin Mackintosh-
Police and the ambulance services rushed down to the property of former notorious rogue landlord, Robert Crow(pictured) on Wednesday, and found him slumped in his disorderly room in Devereux Road, a conservative part of Southend On Sea in Essex.
His multi-millionaire brother who has insisted on anonymity, told The Eye Of Media.Com that he called police after not hearing from his brother for weeks, despite attempts he made to call him and visit him at his property.
The businessman told this publication he thinks his brother has lost his mind and is in serious trouble. He said: ”he is definitely suffering from some serious mental health issues and is losing it completely. I don’t think he is well at all.
‘I called police when he hadn’t returned my calls since Christmas day, and had not responded to a note I placed on his door asking for him to call me.
‘When I arrived at his home and walked through the back of the house, I could see him through saw through the glass slumped on a matrass in his bed, passed out. I thought he was dead’. It’s very worrying, everything has gone downhill for him, he lost two of his friends in a short space of a few months last year.
He doesn’t keep in touch with the rest of the family much, we for for his safety. The authorities said they would contact social services over his condition. One of Mr. Crow’s closest childhood friend died in October last year.
Ambulance at Mr.Crow’s property Image: supplied
John Brait who was convicted of racism against one of Mr. crow’s tenants, died of cancer. He was 71. The pair went to school together, and he once told this publication one thing he remembered of Mr. Crow in school was that he did not like criticism at all.
The cancelled landlord has gone into a serious depression after he was forced out of the business by Southend Borough Council following the withdrawal of housing benefit payments to him, and a court case for breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order that saw him pay out £10,000 in cash .
He had previously been fined a total of £90,000 by the courts, but was let off from paying the debt in 2019 when the courts concluded he simply could not afford it. He has lost three of his four flats in the highly sought after Devereux Road, home to professionals of various calibre
The 72 year old who has been without electricity for 2 years after energy supplier eon withdrew electricity supplies to him, accusing him of tampering with the metre.
When officials from Southend Borough Council visited his property in January 2019, they found various people in different rooms, including one saying he worked for Crow in return for accommodation. A woman said she was renting from Crow and other tenants were found with signs of domestic activity such as washing hanging out to dry.
Basildon Crown Court heard that Crow, who admitted breaching the lettings ban, considered himself to be helping the homeless. by providing them a roof in his suboptimal property
One of his tenants told police he was staying at the property free in exchange for providing manual work for him at the property. The Russian tenant and his wife eventually continued to reside at the property even after all other tenants had left the property.
Mr. Crow is on the verge of homelessness after losing three of his properties on Devereux Road- a distinguished conservatory part of Southend Essex- following numerous court battles with Southend Borough Council, had his phone snatched from him by a teenager riding a bike on Southend High Street. The robber was with around five other youths at the time.
Depressed Mr. Crow who once sought homeless people on the streets to put a roof over their head in his then cockroach infested property, has been without an income for the past two years after Southend Borough Council stopped his benefits and had him convicted by the courts for House of Multiple Occupation breaches, and a breach of a Criminal Behavioural Asbo Order(ASBO)
He has also been without electricity, charging his phone for few hours at his local Last Post pub were he often goes to drown his sorrows with a few beers when he is bored to escape the hopelessness of his battered property, as well as the sorrows of his huge losses from losing virtually everything he worked for.
The vilified former landlord is known to many of the local youths in the drug ridden town for his past brushes with the law over his property. All sorts of individuals have lived in his property over the years.
Last month, Mr Crow was mugged of his mobile phone on Southend High Street by a group of thugs in full view of cameras which do not appear to have been functioning properly at the time, and did capture their identities. He lost all of his contacts, but his brother told us the phone was eventually found weeks later and returned to him by security officials after the thieves apparently lost it themselves.
He has been living in utter darkness for over two years, after energy supplier eon cut off his electricity supplies due to its illegal tampering by the landlord. who was trying to cope with the limited financial supply he had from his £500 monthly pension.
The beleaguered landlord who now eats at soup kitchens with many of the homeless he once accommodated, now lives on his pension, and is in the sort of debt he cannot pay.
Two of the three bedrooms he lost have now been occupied, and he resides in the only room left in the bottom flat of the building.
Court Battle.
Mr Crow was engaged in a long battle with Southend Borough Council for a few years and was fined a total of about £100k for HMO breaches, losing two of his properties, and receiving a 2-year suspended sentence at Basildon Crown Court for breaching a Criminal Behavioural Order given to him.
His property was deemed not fit for housing tenants, though his relatively lax assessment of prospective tenants increased his vulnerability to homeless people who would constitute a nuisance to his neighbours. He did properly vet his tenants and took on all sorts of people.
Cops were called to Crow’s property over 50 times in one year, and one of his flats was raided by cops for drugs on one occasion, leading them to find a notorious drug dealing gang from London renting from him. He was unaware of their criminal endeavours at the time.
One of his tenants later served a jail sentence for stabbing another tenant in the neck after the drug addict caught him trying to steal from his belongings.
Routine anti-social behaviour at his property led to several complaints from his neighbours, all of whom were eager to see his business close down-as it eventually was.
Depression
Crow told this publication last year that he is suffering from chronic depression, having lost successive court battles against Southend Borough Council for HMO and Asbo order breaches . He says he has contemplated suicide a number of times following his plight.
He accused Southend Borough Council taking a biased view against him throughout their legal battle over his none compliance with House of Multiple Occupation(HMOs) rules. After ignoring the many persuasions of his family to sell his property and swerve the tensions with the council, his present plight has devastated him, driving him to the point of utter despair.
In 2022, he told us : ”I am so depressed that the idea of suicide has crossed my mind several times, but I just don’t have the bottle to do it. Everything I worked so hard for has gone down the drain. It’s so painful that I have no inheritance to pass on to my children.
I am so scared of becoming homeless, I don’t know what to do. I can’t even put a deposit down on a property because my credit has been ruined by the monstrous Southend Council. I think they would rather see me dead. but I don’t want to give them that satisfaction”.#
It is unclear what will happen to him once he is finally kicked out of the only flat which ahs long been in the process of repossession.
He struck a deal with one of the buyers of his other properties in 2020, ending up with £20k from the deal. Half of that immediately went to fines., and he has lived on the rest since then, putting aside enough money to put a deposit to rent another property but faces the uphill struggle of passing a much required standard credit check by landlords, which he will undoubtedly fail.
There is also no guarantee Southend Borough Council with whom he has long rivalry over the years will be involved in accommodating him. Their social services will be called in to intervene, but it remains to see if they will respond, or indeed whether Mr. Crow will co-operate with their offer.
At the time of writing, The Eye Of Media was unable to reach Mr. Crow for comment, despite the efforts of his brother to get in touch with him.
Southend Borough Council was contacted for comment, and Essex Police said they had no report on record yet in relation to their visit, likely because no crime was committed.