By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
FORMER Berwick mayor Syd Pargeter has been convicted and fined for cutting cypress trees on his neighbour’s property.
After magistrate Lesley Fleming delivered her decision on Tuesday afternoon, Pargeter, 85, defiantly maintained he had permission from his neighbour to cut the trees.
“I’m a man of my word. I don’t think this case has been run fairly, with all respect to the court,” he said.
Pargeter was visibly unhappy with the magistrate’s decision, accusing his neighbour of lying and saying that he was a “man of his word.”
“I don’t think it’s fair,” he said.
“I’m willing to swear on my family Bible I’ve had since I was 12 years old.
“I thought you were heading to be a judge. I’ll be appealing this in the interests of solar energy.”
Pargeter had previously dismissed his legal team, and run his own defence on the basis of his right to access solar energy.
Pargeter said the decision was a “slap in the face for the solar industry” but Ms Fleming said she wouldn’t allow Pargeter to “give unsworn evidence from the bar table.”
Ms Fleming rebuffed Pargeter’s submission not to convict him after he argued that he needed to preserve his passport rights to spruik a football boot patent in Germany and the US.
His neighbour, who told the court on oath he did not permit the cutting of his trees, later said it was a “correct and just decision.”
Pargeter had hired a contractor to lop the top half off 29 cypress pines originally about four metres in height.
Yesterday he was convicted and fined $1200, and ordered to pay $2280 costs.
