Farmer ‘felled 200 trees to get revenge’

A FARMER took revenge when land was sold from under him by chopping down 200 ancient trees, a court has heard.

Keith Smith, 62, destroyed the 200-year-old hedgerow beeches in protest at a new solar energy plant. The court was told Smith had rented the farmland and woods and wanted to launch a business there. But the land was bought by an energy company to install solar panels to generate electricity – and Smith objected to the plans.

He and his two sons took their chainsaws to the land in Blackwood, near Caerphilly, South Wales, to cut down the trees. Prosecutor Muhammed Yaqub said: “His attitude was: ‘If I can’t have that land, no one else can’.” Newport magistrates’ court heard Smith told investigators he was given permission by solar power company Gildemeister to cut down the trees – but this was a lie. Mr Yaqub said: “There was no evidence that he was given permission to chop the trees down.” Smith, of Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, failed to turn up for the hearing. He was charged with illegal felling and fined £105,082 and ordered to pay £6,945 in costs.

Speaking after the sentence, Jim Hepburn, woodland officer at Natural Resources Wales, said: “This is a devastating case which will have a terrible impact on the local environment.”