The mystery of a mummified body discovered in a rundown £4million Chelsea mansion has finally been solved - 16 years after first being discovered.
Thanks to a major neighbour row in the leafy London area, the corpse, who was identified as a man named Frank, was found in the basement of the Ifield Road mansion back in 2010 after local residents reported a foul smell.
Frank had been a lodger at the property and was known as a regular at a nearby pub.
When he stopped appearing at the local, concerned neighbours raised the alarm, the Daily Mail reports.
The home's owner, Nicholas Halbritter, has now been issued a Section 215 order by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, forcing the 78-year-old to address the property's dire condition.
Neighbours have long complained that the mansion's state has rendered surrounding homes impossible to sell.
The row broke out on Ifield Road in Chelsea | GOOGLE STREET VIEW
Police accessed the property using a ladder from a neighbouring garden.
The body was so badly decomposed that several officers vomited at the scene, with one shaken policeman working his first day on the job. Neighbours subsequently gave him whisky to calm his nerves.
The flat where the man had lived had no indoor toilet, only an outdoor hut now left to rot, covered in knotweed.
"It was in a terrible state," Nik Hoexter said.
"There was no inside lavatory just a hut, which is now rotten and covered in knotweed. The flat would have been cold, damp and deeply unpleasant."
LATEST NEIGHBOUR ROWS:
Officers from Kensington and Chelsea Borough launched an investigation into the property | GOOGLE STREET VIEW
The rear garden is now overrun with Japanese knotweed reaching 10ft tall.
Mr Halbritter is believed to have moved into the property with his mother Elizabeth following his father Sidney's death.
He is thought to be unmarried with no children. His mother's death is said to have triggered his neglect of the home.
Elizabeth had been convicted of shoplifting expensive items from Liberty and John Lewis, with Mr Halbritter filing for bankruptcy in 2002 and later renting rooms to lodgers.
Despite the property's condition, he chairs the Kensington and Chelsea branch of the Royal British Legion and belongs to the Chelsea Society.
In 2022, the borough's mayor honoured him for his fundraising work supporting war veterans and, a year later, attended an Armed Forces reception at 10 Downing Street.
Despite his public profile, locals have called him a "neighbour from hell".
Next-door neighbour Christine Gambles, 69, previously told The Mail on Sunday: "He beetles up the street and runs in the door. If I ask him for a conversation, he literally slams the door in my face."
Mr Halbritter is a former Conservative councillor who once sat on the very planning committee now taking action against him.
This is not his first enforcement notice. Back in August 2016, Hammersmith and Fulham ordered him to tidy the garden under a resource-sharing arrangement between councils.
He failed to comply by the December deadline and faced magistrates the following May, pleading guilty.
At a recent planning committee meeting, lead petitioner Nik Hoexter said: "There's rampant knotweed, there's rats, foxes, there's a mosquito swarm from a leaking mains, which has been going on for two years."
He added: "The owner is Nicholas Halbritter - a former Conservative councillor, and he was actually on this committee."
Councillor Marie-Therese Rossi said: "Surely common sense must prevail. Direct action is needed, and this council must now act in the interest of its long-suffering residents."