Parking is war. It was always going to end up with an architect going after a rheumatologist, allegedly with a knife, in one of Australia’s poshest suburban streets.

The architect, Louise St John Kennedy, is in Perth Magistrates Court representing herself against charges that she told the medical specialist, Prudence Manners, to “move your car, you f---ing dumb bitch”. Kennedy’s dog had a medical emergency. Manners allegedly replied, “Hope the dog dies, Louise.”

Illustration by Dionne GainCredit:

This prompted Kennedy to “momentarily lose control”, but the confrontation, she said, never escalated beyond “a debate”.

Manners told the court that Kennedy waved a knife in her face before grabbing her by the throat. Manners thought she was having a heart attack. Kennedy told the court she was not brandishing a knife, only an architectural tool, an angle finder ruler. (She denies holding the tool in a threatening manner and has pleaded not guilty to being armed or pretending to be armed in a way that may cause fear and common assault.)

I swear I’m not making this up. Louise St John Kennedy is 74. Prudence Manners is 81. Their parking disputes, in Chester Road, Claremont (Perth’s version of Louisa Road, Birchgrove), had been going on for a year.

The Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz defined war as “the continuation of policy with other means”. Whether those “other means” are a knife or an angle finder ruler, a sharply worded note under the windscreen wiper or a slashed tyre, matters less than the underlying anxiety that has brought us, as a society, to this point. Parking derangement syndrome causes people to change their plans, move homes, or just not go out. I’m sure the COVID lockdowns were a relief to many, saving them from fretting about parking, but, like much else in modern life, there has been a post-pandemic rebound, parking derangement syndrome returning with twice the force.

Claremont neighbours........

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