MilOps,
Forgive me, but I have to differ with you over the V-bomber argument. While I appreciate your point about number of sorties, etc, etc, my point was that the fellow would have known from an early stage that the airfield was a tad noisy. Again, I appreciate that different profiles, etc, etc, etc will have made a difference, but the point remains the same - he's been living by an airfield for an awfully long time. Unless there were profound changes in the operations at Wittering in the mid-1980s (when the complaint first arose, I believe) that made the area markedly more noisy than before, then I'd contend that he had some awareness of the ground 'rules'. It may be that his legal team have put his argument across rather poorly for onward transmission by the media, but the impression to date is that he decided that Ops at Wittering ought to cease entirely since this got in the way of his aims. He did, of course, attempt to bring flying ops to a close, but the judge said that this was unreasonable.
My better half once lived near to Yeovilton, and later very close to Cottesmore (experiencing Tornados and GR7s). She remarked that, after a while, the jet noise and other effects really weren't a problem: you got used to them. Perhaps this has coloured my view - it seems that the chap was able to get used to the noise, but as soon as it became clear that the birds wouldn't.... Probably most unfair, but there you go.
I think we'll have to agree to differ on this, but I can see your point nonetheless.