‘My 4ft gorilla statue is my best friend – I’m never removing him from my house’

A homeowner faces a fine of up to £20,000 if she doesn’t remove her four-foot-tall gorilla statue mounted outside her residence.

Adele Teale, 59, has been ordered to remove the resin figure from outside her terraced home within four weeks or face legal action and a fine.

But the ‘Gorilla-mad’ householder has vowed not to remove the statue, which she erected in 2024, and it has become a popular feature with locals.

Brentwood Borough Council has told her she faces a £20,000 maximum fine if imposed by the magistrates’ court or unlimited, if imposed by the crown court, if she does not take it down.

The mum-of-one was first told to remove her ‘beloved’ gorilla, which she calls Caesar, by Wakefield Council last September because he is ‘out-of-character with the surrounding area.’

Adele appealed the decision, and after a lengthy process, council chiefs threw out her claim and have given her four weeks to get the ape gone or be fined.

Adele said: ‘He is my best friend and I don’t ever plan to move him. Everybody loves Caesar; he is part of the community. I just don’t understand what the issue is.

‘I can’t believe all of this fuss over a gorilla. He is nothing more than a garden ornament, and I don’t agree that he needs planning permission.

‘He is secure up there – he has been screwed and glued in place. The council says it’s ‘structural’, but he can be taken down – I could put a Christmas tree up there if I wanted.’

‘I can’t believe all of this fuss over a gorilla’

Adele says since she owns the house, she can have ‘whatever she wants’ outside to decorate it.

‘I got him from a pet supplies store in 2005 – he just stood out to me, I just thought he was beautiful,’ she added.

‘I was gutted when I sold him, so I called the lady who bought him back up two days later, asking if I could be first in line to buy him back if she ever wanted to sell him.’

Caesar sat outside her previous home in Belle Isle, Leeds, Yorkshire, for 15 years without an issue before she sold him when she moved to Stanley, Wakefield, Yorkshire, six years ago.

When she bought him back for £600 in August 2024, Adele re-erected Caesar securely to a wooden plinth between the two upstairs windows of her two-bedroom terraced house four months later in December.

But on May 27, 2025, Adele received a letter from Wakefield Council Planning Services regarding a complaint that an ‘animal structure’ had been built on her property.

The council ‘advised’ that she take down Caesar due to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, suggesting she may have required planning permission to have built him.

It also said for Adele to contact the council within seven days regarding the matter so they could evaluate if she needed to send a retrospective planning application.

The mum said she tried to reach the council over the phone on a number of occasions but claims she ‘never heard back’.

An enforcement notice was then handed to Adele on July 10, 2025, ordering her to remove Ceasar, which she appealed a month later on August 11.

The notice said the statue is ‘not a minor decorative feature but is a prominent, eye-catching structure and is out of character with the surrounding area’.

It also claims that, as a planning application has not been submitted, an assessment to determine if the benefits outweigh the harm to the greenbelt could not be made.

The council say that Caesar has ’caused harm to the greenbelt’ and ‘has made a negative effect on the area’s landscape’.

Adele appealed the decision, but today (May 12) she received an email from the council saying they refused it and upheld the enforcement notice.

In the decision, following a site visit on April 28, it stated it was previously disputed whether the statue and wooden support structure were a development and required planning permission under the 1990 Act.

She now has to remove the statue by June 9, 2026, or she faces a fine.

Adele, who works for Leeds City Council’s passenger travel, continually rejects the council’s planning permission claim, saying he is just a ‘garden ornament’.

Adele, who lives with husband Trevor and son, Billy, said even the binmen shout out to him.

Joe Jenkinson, Wakefield Council’s Service Director for Planning, Transportation and Strategic Highways, said: ‘We appreciate that not everyone will agree, but under planning rules this is not classed as a minor decorative feature.

‘It’s also out of character with the surrounding area. So, it requires planning permission.

‘The Planning Inspectorate is completely independent of the Council, and having looked at it impartially, has dismissed the owner’s appeal and upheld the enforcement notice. This means the gorilla statue will need to be removed within four weeks.’

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