Inferior Number Sentencing – contravention of paragraph (1) of
Article 33 of the Planning and Building (Jersey) Law 2002.
[2015]JRC220
Royal Court
(Samedi)
30 October 2015
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Before :
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W. J. Bailhache, Esq., Bailiff, and Jurats
Marett-Crosby and Thomas
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The Attorney General
-v-
John Bedding
Sentencing by the Inferior
Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charge:
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1 count of:
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Contravention of paragraph (1) of Article 33
of the Planning and Building (Jersey) Law 2002, by carrying out or
permitting or causing to be carried out without permission, building work for
which permission is required under the Building Bye-Laws (Jersey) Law 2007
(Count 1).
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Age: 66.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
The defendant carried out extensive refurbishment
of a building without a permit in accordance with the Bye-Laws. He had recently received a formal
warning from enforcement officers in respect of a similar breach.
Details of Mitigation:
No previous infractions; work in
question carried out to good standard; remorse.
Previous Convictions:
None.
Conclusions:
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Count 1:
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£7,500 fine, plus costs of
£1,500.
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Total: £7,500 fine plus
costs of £1,500 making a total of £9,000.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
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Count 1:
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£4,000 fine or 3 months’ imprisonment
in default, together with costs of £1,500.
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Total: £4,000
fine, plus costs of £1,500.
Two weeks given in
which to pay.
D. J. Hopwood, Esq., Crown Advocate.
Advocate J. D. Kelleher for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF:
1.
The
defendant is here to be sentenced on one charge of carrying out or permitting
and causing to be carried out without permission, building work for which
permission is required under the Building Bye-Laws (Jersey) Law 2007. The work in question amounted to
alteration of three flats and a cottage at Seaview, Commercial Buildings, in
the Parish of St Helier and involved replacing floor joists, altering,
repairing supporting dwarf walls; removing and rebuilding studwork partitions;
rebuilding external walls including the construction of door openings and
foundations; removing and replacing floorboards; removing internal doors;
removing fire-resistant linings from internal walls and ceilings; reconfiguring
the layout of rooms; renovating thermal elements by removing plaster from
external; walls and adding a thermal layer to a roof structure, and providing
or replacing internal and below-ground foul drainage systems.
2.
The work
was commenced, we are told by Advocate Kelleher, during 2014 during times when
the defendant, who has forty years plus experience as a builder, found that he
had gaps in his building work and he therefore had his employees carry out some
of this work on this property which he had acquired in September 2013.
3.
There is
no question that the defendant knew that he needed Bye-Laws permission; he was
given a warning in relation to work he had done for a customer some twelve
months before he started this particular work, and there is no question, it
seems to us, that when he made the Building Bye-Laws application which he did
in February 2015, he must have realised that the Department would come round to
look at what was being done or being proposed, and find out that he had already
started the work; and when he said to the investigating officer he had been
very foolish, and Advocate Kelleher said to us that he had been very foolish,
we accept that he was indeed foolish.
4.
The other
side of that coin is that he did do the work properly and he did ultimately get
his permission and he had put his application in. It is just that he had not done these
things in the right order and there is an element here of this being a process
issue rather than a substance issue because there is no question that the work was
done properly. Now we have looked
at previous fines which the Court has imposed and we think that the
Crown’s conclusions are too high in this particular case but we want to
explain precisely what our thinking is.
The gravamen of the offence of
doing building work without obtaining Bye-Law approval is that the law is there
to protect people; it is there for their safety and it is therefore an
important piece of legislation and people who break the Law by carrying out
that work without getting the appropriate Bye-Law permissions can expect to be fined
a substantial amount of money, even if they do the work properly and even if
they have in fact put in the building application albeit it late. Of course the fines will go up
considerably if the work is not done properly or if there is some other feature
which makes their culpability more serious or more intense. In this case we think that there are
many things that can be said for the defendant; he has no relevant previous
convictions; he was immediately cooperative from the outset, as I say, we treat
this as being a process matter rather than a substance matter, but it is
important to impose a fine which sets an example as it were to the building
trade which makes it plain that conducting building work without Bye-Law
permission is a serious offence and will be treated seriously.
5.
In the
circumstances we are going to fine you in the sum of £4,000 and there
will be 3 months’ imprisonment in default and you have 2 weeks in which
to pay. In addition there will be
costs of £1,500 to the prosecution.
Authorities
Planning and Building (Jersey) Law
2002.
Building Bye-Laws (Jersey) Law 2007.