A CHESTER man has admitted that he didn’t have the right to chop back conifer trees despite his protests that he was acting in the public interest.
Thomas Jones, 46 and of Station Road in Lea by Backford, initially pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal damage to property under the value of £5,000 against Rosemary Jeffers.
Prosecutor Valeriya Tonkinson told the court that the claimant lived alone in the village and maintained her border with conifer trees.
She added that it was her intention for her property to go on the market this year.
But on Thursday, October 10 this year she returned home after an appointment and noticed the defendant was cutting hedgerows and she noticed her conifers had been cut back to almost ‘half their height’.
She confronted the defendant, who is a farm labourer, and his partner who told them that ‘she never cut them and people need to get past’.
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She called the police and said there was a witness to them cutting back the trees.
In court, Jones – who was initially unrepresented – said that as there was a public interest in cutting back the trees, this gave him the right to do so.
However, he was advised to speak with duty solicitor Stevie Bate who informed him that this was not the case.
As proceedings re-started, Jones changed his plea following legal advice and acknowledged he did not have the right.
Ms Bate said: “He incorrectly thought he was doing the public a favour in cutting back the trees as they were on a bend and were hard for people to get past.
“But he does accept that he was not in the right to cut the trees down and was legally wrong.”
She added that Jones also turned down a caution and did not engage with police on that matter which she says ‘shows the level of seriousness’.
Chairman of the bench Jane Davies said: “There is a process and you didn’t follow it, which you now know.”
She gave him a conditional discharge of six months and ordered him to pay £100 in compensation to the victim.
He was also ordered to pay £85 in costs and £26 victim surcharge.
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