London yacht club at centre of £320k High Court battle over former captain's 'harassment campaign'

A prestigious London yacht club is at the centre of a £320,000 High Court battle, as a former captain stands accused of orchestrating a harassment campaign against its commodore over the mooring of an 80-foot Dutch houseboat.

Stefan Oloffs, formerly the cruiser captain at Greenwich Yacht Club, is alleged to have hounded then-commodore Richard Phillips online. Mr Oloffs claimed that Mr Phillips received "preferential treatment" when securing a mooring for his "whopping" barge, accusing him of "misusing his position within the club" to avoid substantial mooring fees.

The alleged campaign against Mr Phillips included publishing claims on a WhatsApp group with 230 club members, lodging a written complaint about the commodore’s conduct with the Port of London Authority, and creating a dedicated website named "Barge Gate".

Mr Phillips is now seeking £20,000 in damages, claiming that he was subjected to a "public campaign of harassment" that caused him "significant distress, loss of sleep, anxiety and public embarrassment", alongside "humiliation and loss of dignity". Legal fees in the case could reach an additional £300,000.

Mr Oloffs, a 54-year-old foreign language teacher, is attempting to have the harassment claim dismissed. He labels the action "wholly unnecessary" and driven by Mr Phillips’ desire for "recrimination and financial oppression" against him.

The High Court in London heard that the two sailors had at one point each had positions on the yacht club’s council, with Mr Phillips, 60, starting out as head of IT before being appointed Rear Commodore, and finally full Commodore in December 2022. Mr Oloffs was expelled from the yacht club in 2024, while Mr Phillips stood down from his commodore post this year.

The pair clashed due to Mr Phillips, who runs a health service software company, needing a berth for his 80-foot barge, Verandering, which he had relocated to London with the intention of selling.

In June 2023, he ran into a barrage of criticism from Mr Oloffs for allegedly “underpaying” mooring fees for his vessel at the club, the court heard.

Despite an internal investigation “exonerating” the then commodore of any impropriety, his lawyers say his former club colleague subsequently “ran a public campaign of harassment” against him in a bid to blacken his good name, leaving Mr Phillips plagued by “distress, humiliation, embarrassment and loss of dignity”.

As a result he is now suing Mr Oloffs for around £20,000 compensation over allegations of sustained harassment, breach of confidence and misuse of his personal data in a claim that could clock up £300,000 in legal fees if it gets to trial.

In his defence, Mr Oloffs' lawyers have labelled the harassment claim “wholly unnecessary” and not even serious enough to amount to real harassment if proved, insisting that the case levelled against him is a personal “vendetta” motivated by a wish for “recrimination and financial oppression”.

The dispute reached the court last week as Mr Oloffs’ legal team urged a judge, Mrs Justice Hill, to throw out the former club commodore’s harassment claim.

Opposing the application, Mr Phillips’ barrister, Mariyam Kamil, highlighted the prolonged nature of the alleged harassment campaign, as well as the heavy emotional impact on her client’s daily life.

Sketching out her case, she told the court: “In June 2023, the defendant made a serious allegation about the claimant to 13 members of the club, 12 of whom were members of its council.

“In broad terms, the allegation was that Mr Phillips had misused his position within the club to improperly obtain a financial benefit by underpaying mooring fees for the claimant’s Dutch barge.”

The yacht club went on to commission an investigation into the complaint which cleared Mr Phillips of any fault and found that “there has been no financial impropriety in the mooring of his barge, only a failure of administration, and the claims made by others are entirely spurious and without merit”, explained Ms Kamil, adding:

“However, Mr Phillips’ case is that, from about July 2023 to March 2024, Mr Oloffs ran a public campaign of harassment against him undeterred by the findings of the investigation and despite repeated reminders from numerous people to desist from his campaign.

“Over a substantial period of time, the defendant ran a campaign of harassment against Mr Phillips which entailed the deliberate and malicious making of serious and public allegations.

“These allegations were false, Mr Oloffs knew them to be false, and he had been informed that they were false,” said the barrister, labelling his conduct “deliberate and motivated by personal grievance against Mr Phillips”.

The alleged campaign took the form of a complaining email sent by Mr Oloffs to 13 club members, publishing the claims against Mr Phillips on a 230-member WhatsApp group, a written complaint to the Port of London Authority about the commodore’s conduct, and the creation of the “Barge Gate” website.

He had to defend himself before fellow club members and was “verbally criticised, berated or questioned” in relation to Mr Oloffs’ groundless preferential treatment claims, and was even shouted at on two occasions, said his barrister.

But David Hirst, for Mr Oloffs, argued that the harassment claim had to be seen against the background of protracted legal wrangling between the men, adding that his client has in the past offered up an apology to Mr Phillips and had agreed “not to continue any conduct targeting Mr Phillips”.

He said the campaign he had run “objected to what he perceived to be favourable treatment to Mr Phillips over his mooring of a large barge at a prime riverside location, at low rates and without consistent rent payment”, arguing that as a person in a position of responsibility Mr Phillips should have expected to have to deal with “robust” criticism at times.

When Mr Phillips formally complained about this in February 2024, Mr Oloffs “respected his feelings and ceased his campaigning”, he said.

The harassment action was disproportionate, argued Mr Hirst, saying the legal fees in the case could ultimately reach around £300,000 if allowed to continue.

Following a day in court, the judge reserved her decision on whether or not to “strike out” the harassment claim against Mr Oloffs.

Greenwich Yacht Club, which is located around three miles downriver from Tower Bridge, has a roll call of over 400 members and hosts facilities for dinghy, cruiser and rowing.

Originally founded by Thames watermen and river workers in 1908, the club once had its venue at a riverside hut but in 2000 relocated to its current iconic platform in the middle of the river itself.

The court also heard that Mr Oloffs says he was “expelled” from the yacht club in January 2024 after a “perfunctory hearing” presided over by Mr Phillips, and later told he “repeatedly raised grievances on the club's social media, publicised on the internet private financial information about a member and spread claims about a member which appear to be defamatory”.

His appeal to the club against the expulsion order has yet to be determined.