Truck palace puts Guernsey ‘King’ at risk of prison

Tuesday 24 September 2019

The self-proclaimed ‘King’ of a small parcel of land across the water in Guernsey has been given two weeks to remove a truck he’s turned into his palace home – or face jail.

The States of Guernsey has applied to have Steve Ogier, who has tried to claim independence from Guernsey by creating ‘Everland’ because he disagreed with the planning laws, committed to prison.

The application comes following a litany of breaches of rules stating he should not develop his land for residential use.

It’s not the first time Mr Ogier has found himself on the cusp of imprisonment. But, in a previous instance, he managed to avoid the sentence by moving a shipping container on his land at the eleventh hour.

Pictured: Mr Ogier says his parcel of land is independent from Guernsey, but it has previously been argued in Court he would need recognition from a foreign nation to have legitimate independence. 

During those hearings, Mr Ogier admitted he had been living on the land - a material breach of planning laws because the site is categorised as agricultural land.

He has since been found to be living in a converted truck body there. When requested by Guernsey’s Planning Department to remove the makeshift home, Mr Ogier refused to respond.

The island’s government did not want to exercise its powers to forcibly remove the truck from the land because of concerns that action could breach Mr Ogier's human right to have shelter to live in. 

The matter landed ‘King Steve’ back in court on Friday, with the States’ lawyer asking for Mr Ogier to be committed to prison for acting in contempt of court.

Everland’s ruler only gave a brief statement to the court, reiterating his stance that he felt Guernsey's Court had no jurisdiction over his kingdom, and that he still wants to be proven otherwise.

Pictured: The court case could be Mr Ogier's last before finally facing prison for his repeated Planning breaches.

He did not ask for an adjournment to get legal advice, and also declined to give evidence, which left the Deputy Bailiff Richard McMahon with an affidavit from planning as the only evidence he had. That affidavit said it was clear Mr Ogier was living on the land because of pictures of the truck body, quotes from Mr Ogier in Court, and posts he had made on Facebook.

At first, the Deputy Bailiff tried to give Mr Ogier two weeks to go away and remove the vehicle which was putting him in breach of planning laws. He agreed to do this as long as Planning “left him in peace”.

But when the department pointed out that it has a number of outstanding compliance notices to deal with, Mr Ogier changed his mind. 

Mr McMahon took some time to consider the application, but decided he wanted more evidence to prove there had been a change of use on the land. This argument came down to the definition of 'domicile', which did not appear to include vehicles like the truck body Mr Ogier was living in. The matter now had to be proved to a criminal standard of proof.

The Deputy Bailiff has adjourned the matter for two weeks, but told Mr Ogier he could then go to prison. He added that if Mr Ogier removes the truck body in the meantime, it was unlikely the application would be pursued. 

The matter will conclude on 7 October.