Claudia Schiffer ‘faces legal action in Majorca as neighbour claims gardener trespassed on property to cut down trees’

MODEL Claudia Schiffer is at the centre of an extraordinary court probe over claims she and her film producer husband had two pines trees belonging to a multi-millionaire neighbour chopped down because they were blocking their view.

Willi Weber, ex manager of legendary F1 racing driver Michael Schumacher, is reportedly suing the German beauty and British husband Matthew Vaughn after discovering the trees had been removed.

He says a specialist hired by the couple trespassed on his land after ignoring a warning to leave the trees alone and took them away with him after using a chainsaw to chop them down, according to local reports.

Respected island daily Diario de Mallorca said he and the couple’s staff gardener have already been quizzed by a judge heading an ongoing investigation and Claudia and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels producer Vaughn could now end up in front of a judge.

Mr Weber, said to have lodged his complaint after the trees disappeared from his garden next to Ms Schiffer’s mansion in Camp de Mar in July last year, told a German newspaper earlier this year he had received an apology from her husband.

Insisting the 30ft pines were “cut off behind his bedroom”, he claimed: “Matthew Vaughn apologised to me and said what had happened was an accident and they thought the trees were on their plot.”

Mr Weber also told Bild am Sonntag he planned to build a high wall between his home and his neighbour’s and bill them for the cost after what happened, warning: “Otherwise I will plant so many trees that they can only smell the sea.”

The colourful German, who made a name in the motorsport world by discovering and promoting talents like Michael Schumacher and his brother Ralf, has in the past represented Claudia Schiffer, 45, through his Stuttgart-based management firm.

He could not be reached for comment today.

Court officials in the Majorcan capital Palma did not provide any immediate response to the litigation reports.

Mr Weber claimed in legal papers filed with the investigating court that a gardener acting on Schiffer’s orders cut pine trees on her land on July 6 2015, Diario de Mallorca reported.

It said the two trees on his land were chopped down on July 22 despite him warning the model and her staff not to trespass on his property after clearing up branches that had fallen in his garden after the earlier incident.

Ms Schiffer’s gardener reportedly told a judge during questioning on an unidentified date that he got a specialist in to do the job after she told him to cut a pine tree on her land down.

The specialist, who has also given evidence, is said to have admitted chopping down the two pine trees at the centre of the dispute because they were ridden with disease “after Schiffer’s husband pointed them out to them from a distance.”

Regional council officials contacted by the court are understood to have confirmed the trees weren’t protected species.

Mr Weber says the disappearance of the trees deprived him of shade and is claiming according to reports that he believes Ms Schiffer and her husband acted the way they did because they wanted to improve their sea view so they could increase the sale price of their property.

“The lawsuit says they took the two trees, the trunk and the branches, which had a high economic value,” Diario de Mallorca reported.

“And that the branches damaged an air conditioning unit when they fell which is now unusable.”

It said the Palma court was investigating allegations of trespass, misappropriation and a crime against the environment, although a spokesman for the local council in Andratx confirmed today/yesterday (THURS) that if the trees were not on rustic land a maximum of two could be chopped down without the need for a licence.

Last December Willi Weber, 74, made headlines by claiming he had been banned from seeing Michael Schumacher who was left in a coma after a skiing accident in 2013.

He told German media: “Michael’s wife Corinna prevents me from having any contact with him.

“I’ve tried dozens of times to get permission to visit, each time without success.”