Bicton Park had already established itself as a well-loved botanical garden with trains taking visitors around the perimeter of the grounds. Steve and Jenny Stevens, owners of Bicton at the time, agreed to a small section of the park to become Gotchaland, however the branding took over with Bicton Park’s own gardens and museums suffering. Visitors didn’t take well to the new addition, and after one season it was decided that Gotchaland would be no more. Noel Edmonds, however, had planned for a three-year takeover (much like his other theme park ventures) and sued the Stevens’ for not sticking to the contract. Jenny Stevens stated that regular visitors were turning away, saying they loved the gardens but not Gotchaland. Investments for attractions were paid for by the Stevens’, with Noel Edmonds claiming they didn’t invest enough. In truth, the concept was a novelty, the joke would only work once and visitors wouldn’t want to come back. In a court case in 1997, “Stanley Burton QC stated that the Unique scheme for Bicton ‘manifestly required the deception of the public, or at least of children’, that Unique’s ‘proposals were not reasonably fit for their purpose. Rather than adding value to Bicton, they detracted from it.’