| On 20 October
1998, as a result of a telephone call, a planning enforcement officer for Eastbourne BC
attended a site where he found the appellant clearing uprooted trees with the use of
machinery.
It was alleged that on 20 October 1998 the appellant had uprooted an Ash tree and other
trees in contravention of a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) made by the council on 9
November 1994.
At the hearing, a submission was made by the appellant of no case to answer on the
basis there was insufficient evidence on which a reasonable tribunal might convict.
The justices held that there was a case to answer and went on to find the appellant
guilty of the offenses and fined him £2,000 on each offense and ordered him to pay £372
costs to the council.
The appellant appealed contending that the justices had not been entitled to convict
because there had been no evidence that the trees in question had existed at the time that
the order was made.
During the appeal hearing it was held that:
- The justices had not been entitled to convict the appellant on the basis of photographic
evidence showing uprooted trees that had allegedly been previously growing on the part of
the appellant's land that was covered by the TPO.
- There had been no accompanying evidence as to the age of the trees or that any of them
had existed on that part of the applicant's land when the TPO was made.
- The justices had not been entitled to find that the trees referred to in the original
case, on which the appellant had been convicted, had existed at the time that the TPO was
made and were protected by that order.
Accordingly, the decision of the justices was to be quashed and the appeal allowed.
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