This morning saw the verdict and sentence handed down in the long running saga of the Grove Wood Shipping container.
Rhino Group and Housang Jafari were in court as the two defendants in a case brought by Bristol City Council following their failure to remove the container (pictured) when an enforcement notice had been issued.
Following two days in court last week during which Jafari's Solicitior and fellow Rhino director John Mair tried to obfuscate and befuddle all around him, the judge gave an eloquent speech today explaining that the case before him was "Not complex" as the concept of "removal" was quite a simple one. Mr Jafari had been told to remove the container, he had deliberately ignored the instruction, and so was guilty. Simple as that.
During his summing up, judge David Parsons used words such as "Disingenuous" and "Spurious" then said that Rhino Group had tried to "mislead the court and the local authority". He also said that as a businessman, Mr Jafari seemed to have bought the wood without "any clear idea of what he was going to do with it". Conflicting claims of a "memorial garden" and "forestry" use had obviously carried no weight with Judge Parsons.
Mr Jafari and Rhino Group were both fined £765 each, and costs of over £8000 each were awarded against them.
3 comments:
The Law is most definitely not an ass on this occasion!
Now we see that Mr Jafari's statement to us that "I can do what I like in this country" is as false as we all knew it would be!
It's good the judge saw through them. I was there for some of the trial and I remember the judge calling Mr Mair's defence incompetent at one point. I especially enjoyed the moment when Jafari asked the same question of a witness because 'he gave the wrong answer' the first time he asked it.
Mair revealed some interesting things that we will be following up with Bristol City Council, but they are not for blogging at this stage.
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