By Mike Taylor, PA News, 23rd. June 2005

Europe's biggest strawberry grower was fined £65,000 today for contempt of a court order banning unauthorised building work on facilities for up to 1,400 migrant fruit pickers.

A High Court judge refused to send Stanley Davies to prison, but said he and his S & A Property group of companies must face a financial penalty "to make clear that injunctions must be obeyed, be you ever so large a business".

Mr. Justice Stanley Burnton also ordered them to pay £11,489 legal costs to Herefordshire District Council and said that, if the fine was not paid, the council could apply for seizure of the company's assets.

The council has accused Mr. Davies of creating "what amounts to a new village" at Brierley Court Farm, a 200-acre former hop farm near Leominster.

After obtaining an injunction to stop further works a year ago, the authority took him back to court when he installed more than a dozen windows in a previously boarded-up amenity building.

Mr. Davies claimed the windows were covered by an exemption allowing him to "make safe" any existing structures on health and safety grounds.

But the judge rejected his argument and ruled that the installation of the windows was a contempt of court.

The company's plans, in addition to polytunnels and mobile homes which do not require planning permission if they are temporary, were said to include sewerage, a doctor's surgery, cinema, disco, sauna, gymnasium, internet cafe, library and swimming pool.

S & A employs mainly Russian and European students under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme in order to harvest thousands of tonnes of fruit while, as the judge put it, the pickers "earn some money and possibly learn something about England and the English".

The company says it wants to provide modern facilities in line with government welfare standards.

But the complex has been condemned by some local residents, including TV gardener Monty Don, as a "blight on the landscape".

Today, the judge rejected argument by Mr. Davies's lawyers that the "make safe" exception in the injunction was to protect users of the amenity building from, for instance, the ingress of rain water which could cause a slippery floor. He said the intention was not to make the building habitable and usable, but to protect people using the farm site from dangers such as the structure becoming unstable in a high wind.

The judge ordered Mr. Davies to remove the windows and return the building to its previous boarded-up state.

Mr. Davies was not in court.

End