Cameron's father in police probe over land row

Sir Reginald Sheffield, the father of Cameron's wife Samantha, is said to have become enraged during a heated dispute over a strip of land at his magnificent 300-acre country estate.

John Kilmartin, who lives in a semidetached former council house adjoining the estate in Normanby, Lincolnshire, said yesterday that Sir Reginald ranted and shouted at him, before pushing him out through the door and "blowing me off the premises".

He says he made a formal complaint to the police, who have investigated the incident but decided not to prosecute.

"Sir Reginald is a big bully multimillionaire landlord who is trying to push me around," Mr Kilmartin said last night.

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However, Sir Reginald - a direct descendant of Charles II - remained silent, saying only: "I have no comment to make." Earlier his wife, Lady Sheffield, admitted: "The police were called."

Humberside police confirmed that they "received an allegation of an assault against a 45-year-old man at Normanby on April 25".

A spokesman said they talked to witnesses and "concluded that no offences had been committed. After consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service it was decided that no further action was necessary and no arrests were made."

Despite 61-year-old Sir Reginald's reticence over the incident, Mr Kilmartin was only too happy to discuss what he characterised as a clash between nobility and the common man.

His claims will make excruciating reading for the Tory leader, already highly sensitive to reminders of his privileged upbringing and connections.

Mr Kilmartin said he went to discuss a dispute over the boundary between his property and his neighbour, Simon Ogg, a tenant farmer on the estate which has been in Sheffield family hands since 1590.

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"I was talking to Sir Reginald's secretary and I said I wanted to speak with Sir Reginald.

"I didn't know he was on the premises when suddenly he burst into the office and threw me out of the door, shouting, screaming and ranting at me. He pushed me out of the offices and blew me off the premises.

"I was amazed at the way he treated me. I was merely trying to make my point as a private householder over a dispute with one of his tenants - which is far from over.

"I was interviewed after ringing Humberside police to make a complaint on the day it happened. I made a statement but they have tried to play all this down.

"At the time I made the complaint I said to the police officer, "You'll probably not even bother interviewing Sir Reginald because of who he is and who I am not." The officer assured me that they would."

Mr Kilmartin, who runs his own window and conservatory company, said he was extremely distressed by the incident.

"I'm a heart patient who has had new valves fitted recently and I also have a pacemaker.

"I had my blood pressure taken the following day and it was through the roof. It has all been very distressing for me. I could have been hurt or worse by the incident."

The dispute centres on land both Mr Kilmartin and Mr Ogg claim to be theirs. Mr Kilmartin said the land was rightfully his because Mr Ogg's predecessor had put up a fence marking the boundary.

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However, Mr Ogg said last night that the dispute was a "storm in a teacup" and had been resolved in his favour.

Mr Kilmartin says he is still fighting to have the boundary erected by Mr Ogg's predecessor recognised as the rightful one.

Samantha Cameron, 36, creative director of upmarket stationers Smythson of Bond Street, is the eldest of Sir Reginald's two daughtersby his first marriage to Annabel Jones, a businesswoman who set up an eponymous jeweller's in Knightsbridge, London, frequented by Princess Diana.

His second daughter by Annabel, Emily Sheffield, was expelled from Marlborough public school after drugs were found in her dormitory during a police raid. Now 33, she is an award-winning journalist.

The marriage ended in 1975 after just five years. Two years later, Sir Reginald married his current wife, Victoria, with whom he had two further daughters and his son and heir, Robert. Annabel, 58, went on to marry Viscount Astor.

Cameron met Samantha, a friend of his younger sister Clare, at a party at his family home in Berkshire in 1987, when he was 21 and she was just 16.

They started dating five years later when Samantha joined the Cameron family on holiday in Italy.

The pair married in 1996 in Oxfordshire at a wedding attended by guests including Jade Jagger, and have three children.