By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
Timber! Syd Pargeter in court for allegedly hacking the crowns off his neighbour’s cypress trees.
Ex-mayor slams legal team as he faces criminal charges…
FORMER Berwick Mayor Syd Pargeter OAM faced a charge of criminal damage on Monday and Tuesday for lopping a neighbour’s cypress trees in Harkaway.
The 85-year-old admitted to hiring a third party to chopping off the upper trunks of a 40-metre row of trees last year after a long-running dispute about the trees shading his solar-panelled shed.
However, he is pleading not guilty to the charges.
In Dandenong Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Tuesday) Mr Pargeter’s lawyer Kyle McDonald argued that no criminal damage was done because he had a genuine belief that he had verbal consent from the trees’ owner – a claim strenuously denied by the owner – and that there was no lasting harm.
Police prosecutor Senior Sergeant Cameron Gould argued that even without physical harm, the four-metre trees had been structurally and aesthetically changed.
Three arborists testified that the 22 pruned trees were still healthy and vigorously shooting re-growth despite their top two metres of trunk – or the crown – being removed and branches cut and torn in a “sub-standard” fashion.
One of the arborists, Patrick Barr, estimated it would take at least three years for the visible damage to be concealed.
Another arborist, Tom Greenwood, said the cuts could be remedied by more pruning to meet Australian standards.
Mr Pargeter’s neighbour testified he had returned from a trip to find the hacked trees on 31 March 2012, as well as being given the bill for the job.
He said he’d planted the trees in 2005 as a screening measure.
“If I was going to have my trees pruned or cut in any way, I’d have my own contractors do it. I’d not involve Mr Pargeter at all.”
Mr Pargeter was an animated player during the proceedings, frequently passing notes to his legal team and thumbing through photos of the trees.
At one stage he was formally cautioned by magistrate Lesley Fleming for interjecting during his neighbour’s testimony.
The next day his voice was raised outside the court during a vigorous request for Mr McDonald to call a last-minute witness.
He demurred but not without calling his legal team a “pack of bastards”.
Ms Fleming reserved her decision until next month.
