http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-22...fence.html


The 'victim' work for british gas customer services so I dont think his absence at work will make much difference At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

Farmer takes away an abandoned car and gets praise.

Nurse takes away an abandoned child and looses her registration and job (didnt poke holes through child though).

Perhaps neither story has been fully reported but it seems our society has really gone wrong. Everyone can spread it - Anyone can catch it. Stay home - the life you save can be your own!

Fleckney is not exactly isolated and in the middle of the outback either.
And as you say by the time he gets back to work the person he last spoke to will probably be still there hanging on the other end of the phone waiting for their reply.

btw isnt that daily mail web site a total waste of space, celeb gossip that about it, most of it made up by lazy repoertes no doubt but lapped up by the masses.

I got the link from another forum honest

http://farmingforum.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=80118 At work
At home

"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race

Seems like he slid into one of the one or two farmers in the country who are just plain t***pots to be honest. Mine: 2012 Golf GTI Edition 35
Family's: 2009 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Auto, Stornoway

Yorkshire - God's County

I'm more concerned about the police's reaction. Do they have an understanding of crime beyond speeding?

Tigger wrote:

I'm more concerned about the police's reaction. Do they have an understanding of crime beyond speeding?

No, because the Bentley driver would have been a fellow farmer!

In this day and age though how do you prove the farmer drove through the roof on purpose? He could just claim it was an accident trying to move it. Case over as there's no evidence.

However, the farmer has pretty much admitted he has done it, so the lads insurance company, if they have anything about them should recover the costs from him.

If it was my car I'd be going round ripping his fences out during the night if he'd done that to my car and given me the attitude. Mine: 2012 Golf GTI Edition 35
Family's: 2009 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Auto, Stornoway

Yorkshire - God's County

Big Dave wrote:

how do you prove the farmer drove through the roof on purpose?

The first accident was damage caused by trespass, and would be civil law not criminal, police do not get involved in civil cases.

Trespass law goes back many a year, and a landowner was given the right to impound animals that had trespassed and could hold them until damages were paid regardless of any damage or not being caused.

If payment after a certain time was not made they could claim the animal as there own and sell it to make good their losses.

It is this old law that wheel clampers used to earn their living from.

In our media covered world these inadequacies of old useless laws just gets more coverage

Trespass is intentional...I'm pretty sure he slid off the road by accident, completely different. Mine: 2012 Golf GTI Edition 35
Family's: 2009 Freelander 2 HSE TD4 Auto, Stornoway

Yorkshire - God's County

No

If you enter unlawfully anothrs property you are liable to damage caused.

Basically without landowners permission you commit tresspass nothing to do with intention,

I will offer my input here.

Criminal Damage

This point about the police saying intent can't be proved is not the be all and end all because of recklessness. Criminal Damage Act 1971 states as follows:

s.1(1) A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another intending to destroy or damage any such property or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged shall be guilty of an offence

Recklessness – in the context of criminal damage was originally defined by the House of Lords in R v Caldwell [1982] AC 341 to include inadvertence to an obvious risk of damage to property. In R v G [2003] UKHL 50 the House of Lords reversed Caldwell and provided a fully a subjective definition for recklessness:
“A person acts recklessly within the meaning of section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 with respect to —
(i) a circumstance when he is aware of a risk that it exists or will exist;
(ii) a result when he is aware of a risk that it will occur;
and it is, in the circumstances known to him, unreasonable to take the risk.”
Accordingly, it is subjective.

Given the circumstances, it seems clear to me that a farmer using a forklift truck on a car would be well aware of the potential to cause damage as per the above statement on recklessness. The farmers only defence would be trying to argue honest belief under S.5(2)

Trespass

This is not a trespass. A trespass can be defined as an "Unjustifiable interference with the possession of land"

The interference must be direct rather than indirect or consequential. Where land adjoining the highway is unintentionally entered e.g a car accident, the claimant (farmer) must prove negligence.

 LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

Handy having a legal beagle of our own. Thanks Doc.