Criminal damage is the intentional damage to, destruction of, or adverse interference with, the property, or installation, or other productive work of another person, and against their wishes.
An often misunderstood point is that it doesn’t matter, if that installation or productive work should happen to be on land not owned or otherwise formally occupied by the person who put it there. That fact doesn’t give another party the right to damage it, and if they should, then our understanding is that they may be convicted of an offence.
We’re sorry to have to report then, that a plot holder has suffered repeated damage to a wood chip path that they have installed beside their plot, with the underlay having been ripped back and the path destroyed more than once.
We’d point out to whoever keeps doing this, that for the reasons explained in the earlier paragraphs, this seems to us to be criminal damage.
The maintenance of paths between plots is the joint responsibility of the respective tenants, and ideally their nature would be a matter of agreement. However, some plot holders are seldom present, and if not, then common sense would say that if the other plot holder invests the work in maintaining it – in whatever form – then everyone should respect that.
Volunteers had also built a log pile to support wildlife in the conservation area – clearly signed to discourage disturbance – beside Road Three. A good part of it has now been removed unfortunately, and what appear to be some of the logs have appeared on a nearby plot. Would everyone please kindly not interfere with this area, especially now that nesting season has started.
Finally, we’d mention that ignorance of the law isn’t a defence in these matters.
PPA Website Team
