A builder and developer has shared how he lost “everything” after a planning prosecution he felt was pursued against him out of malice by public servants.

As reported by Express for the first time yesterday, Michael John Neville, who had a business buying, refurbishing and reselling properties, has brought civil legal action against eight former and current government workers, as well as the States Employment Board, accusing them of “malfeasance in public office”.

A trial, which is scheduled to last one week, opened in the Royal Court yesterday.

Mr Neville alleges that he was unfairly targeted by planning officers – for unknown reasons – when he was served an enforcement notice, and eventually convicted, for placing uPVC windows on two listed properties he had bought.

Mr Neville bought 17 and 19 Devonshire Place in 2007, which were listed as ‘Buildings of Local Interest’. At the time, they had metal Crittall windows, the court heard. These had been authorised in the 1970s, replacing the original timber sash windows.

Mr Neville replaced the windows on the rear of the property with UPVC windows, relying on “accepted practice” that this would be fine if they weren’t visible to the public.

He was refused a retrospective planning application.

In 2010, Mr Neville was found guilty in the Magistrate’s Court of breaching planning laws and fined £1,000. However, three years later, he successfully appealed his conviction in the Royal Court.

A “history” of “not being treated fairly”

Addressing the Royal Court yesterday, Mr Neville’s lawyer, Advocate Mike Preston, said: “The crux of the complaint aimed at Mr Neville was that he’d replaced timber sash windows with plastic windows.”

“He didn’t,” Advocate Preston added, “and Planning know that. They knew that from the very outset.”

Mr Neville had bought the properties with metal windows already installed, he said.

The court viewed pictures of the premises – seen from the street and from the back – where the metal windows were visible.

Advocate Preston added: “Mr Neville says there was a history of him not being treated fairly and what was done to him regarding Devonshire Place was part of that unfair treatment.

“The attitude of some [officials] was so pervasive that it became the attitude of all towards him.”

He added that the transcript of Mr Neville’s Magistrate’s Court trial in 2010 “doesn’t make, in my submission, easy reading in many places.

“The treatment of Mr Neville by the Assistant Magistrate was at times dismissive, at times disrespectful. That’s the impression that he formed and he will give evidence as to how that made him feel.”

Advocate Preston added that this attitude was “particularly difficult to understand” when the “fundamental principle” of the prosecution was successfully appealed in the Royal Court.

“Victim of a… department that considered itself above the law”

“He was deeply hurt and it will be his evidence that his treatment has impacted on his life in such a way, as he will candidly say, that it has ruined his life.”

Mr Neville’s house-flipping business, he said “has never recovered”.

Giving evidence, Mr Neville said: “I have lost everything.”

He even had to remortgage his home, he said.

“His case is that he was not treated fairly to such an extent that public officials with which he came into contact committed acts which amount to misfeasance in public office.

“He says that he was treated in a way which was dishonest. He was a victim of a planning department that considered itself above the law.

“For reasons he will never understand, the defendants acted out of some personal animosity towards him.”

He said that it seemed that planning officers “took against him” for what Mr Neville considered to be “irrational reasons” during earlier planning applications – and that the views of two of the officers who dealt with him, Peter Le Gresley and Marion Jones, “infected” the approach taken towards him by then-Enforcement Officers Keith Bray and Jerry Bolton.

The latter two – both former police officers – had an attitude towards Mr Neville which was “not healthy”, the court was told.

“He says they took the planning law into their own hands,” Advocate Preston said.

Memory lapse “stretches credibility”

Tracey Ingle, at the time the Head of the Historic Buildings Department, told the 2010 Magistrate’s Court trial that she didn’t remember being involved with the enforcement notice relating to the windows – but this was untrue, Advocate Preston said.

Advocate Preston read out extracts from the 2010 trial. In these, Mrs Ingle denied any involvement with the enforcement notice – a lie, according to Mr Neville and his lawyer.

“She was giving evidence in a planning prosecution.

“The suggestion that she had forgotten that she did play a role stretches credibility in the extreme and that in itself is an act of misfeasance in public office.”

Given her position, she should also have known more details of the site, he said.

Other defendants – the Chief Executive Officer of the Planning and Environment Department Andrew Scate, the then-St Helier Chef de Police Daniel Scaife, and Law Officers’ Department legal adviser Advocate Robin Morris – should have put a stop to proceedings against him, he argued.

The trial continues. Commissioner Terence Mowschenson is presiding with Jurats Alison Opfermann and Mike Berry.