Pensioner faces jail for refusing to pay council tax after travellers next door 'commit 250 crimes'

Published 19th Feb 2009

A grandfather who has been the victim of nearly 250 crimes since a traveller camp was opened next to his home is facing jail after refusing to pay his council tax for nine years.

Bruce Charter says life has been 'not worth living' since the council set up the 16 pitches in 1997 without informing him in advance.

Since then he has recorded 249 offences - including at one point an average of three burglaries a week.

With his five-bedroom Band D home left worthless, he started withholding council tax payments in 2000. He owes £9,495.

Mr Charter, a roofer, is being taken to court after ignoring 172 letters from bailiffs. Yesterday he vowed that he would 'serve time' before settling the debt.

'It's like a war zone,' said the 62-year-old, who lives in Earith, Cambridgeshire, with his partner, Rita Redfern, 64. 'We don't enjoy our lives - they've been made a misery at best and a living hell at worst.

'Our home is now our prison, so if they want to send me to jail, so be it. I will never pay. I'm not a law-breaker and I'm not fiddling my benefit, yet they treat me like dirt and ignore my rights.'

The couple bought a derelict Victorian property on two acres beside the River Ouse in 1982 for £20,500. They spent £100,000 on renovations, as well as building a workshop in an outbuilding and a granny annexe.

In 1994, East Cambridgeshire District Council bought a neighbouring residential caravan site and three years later turned it into an official travellers' site with 16 pitches.

The first theft was in 1998. In 1999 alone there were 119 offences. Since then Mr Charter has kept a log of each crime, including the theft of a £500 generator and 2,000 roof tiles.

The couple are also regularly terrorised, with their windows being pelted with rocks. Mr Charter has stopped reporting most crimes after police failed to make a single arrest.

He and Miss Redfern have not taken a holiday since the travellers arrived for fear they would return to find their home stripped bare.

Mr Charter added: 'There's no point owning anything as the travellers will nick it. I've bricked up the windows to stop them entering.'


Miss Redfern had an operation to treat a cyst in her brain in 1992. She still has implants in her skull to control the flow of fluid inside it. Stress makes her condition worse.

The council was found guilty of maladministration and causing injustice by the Local Government Ombudsman in 2001. It was told to pay him £500 and said it would seek a way to resolve his problems. But no solution had been found by 2005 and he sued the council for causing a nuisance and negligence.

The following year he and a former neighbour received an undisclosed out-of-court settlement. In the meantime, he has continued refusing to pay his council tax.

The only time it was paid was in 2000 when the funds were provided by an anonymous donor. Band D homeowners in East Cambridgeshire are currently charged £1,354.68 in council tax.

Mr Charter has now received a summons to appear before Huntingdon County Court. His solicitor, Kathy Yates, may begin further legal proceedings on the grounds that his house has not regained its market value, currently estimated to be £500,000. She said the council should have informed him about its plans for the traveller site.

'Morally it was their duty to tell Mr Charter in person or put a note through his door,' she said. 'They must have known the site would blight Mr Charter.

'I would like to see the council buy this house. It's the only sensible solution.'

Alex Colyer, the council's executive director of finance, said: 'Given that Mr Charter refuses to discuss this situation with us, we have been forced to place this matter before the courts to claim his arrears. Withholding council tax is never an effective way of resolving a dispute.'

Source: ' Daily Mail '

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