A PENSIONER has been ordered to pay £7,515 for ‘butchering’ trees in an Area of Outstanding Nat-ural Beauty.

Albert King, of Weymouth Bay Avenue, Weymouth was found guilty of permitting the wilful destruction of protected trees following a trial at Dorchester Crown Court.

The 73-year-old, who had denied the charge, was fined £2,500, ordered to pay £5,000 costs and a £15 victim surcharge for destroying as many as 30 trees in the Fleet woods area of Chickerell, Weymouth.

A jury of eight woman and four men took just over an hour to reach a unanimous guilty verdict.

Judge Roger Jarvis told King: “This Tree Protec-tion Order (TPO) is on beautifully situated land in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

“You knew this order was in place and that it covered all trees on the site.

“You quite openly accepted to the jury that you caused the destruction of healthy trees and it’s plain to me that you still wish to erect a building and it’s perfectly obvious that healthy trees were removed in order to facilitate that building.”

He added: “This is as brazen a breach of a TPO as it’s possible to imagine.

“In my judgement you are highly culpable of wilfully disobeying an order you know exists at the site.

“There has been a considerable loss of woodland after a butchering of trees.”

King had told the jury: “I had a job to do and I wasn’t really thinking about the trees.

“I wasn’t going to get someone killed for a stupid tree – that would be ridiculous.”

Graham Cox, senior trees and woodlands officer at West Dorset District Council, told the court that in 2009 up to 30 trees had been felled to create a large clearing in the woodlands.

He said: “I visited the site on October 2, 2009 and when I arrived I could see a large clearing had been opened up and between 10 and 30 trees had been destroyed. I could tell from the sawdust on the ground that the work was recent.”

Using photographs seen by the jury Mr Cox identified ash, oak, field maple, beech, sycamore and possibly elm trees as some of the species which had been destroyed.

He said some trunks had been cut down and others had been uprooted using a JCB digger.

In mitigation, Tim Shorter said King did not have a luxury lifestyle and was of very modest means. He was also looking after his 32-year-old son.

He added that King did not achieve a financial benefit from cutting down the trees and has had a difficult relationship with the district council. He said the trees felled were relatively young and that most of the big mature trees are still on site.

King was cleared of a charge of causing the destruction of protected trees but was found guilty by the jury of the alternative charge of permitting it.