Footpath victory

Hoogstraten was convicted at the Old Bailey of manslaughter earlier this year.

Kate Ashbrook former chair of the Ramblers Association failed in March this year in a High Court claim in which she argued that the council had ignored its own policy in considering an application by Van Hoogstraten's company Rarebargain Ltd for an order to divert the 140-year-old footpath.

Last month she renewed her battle before three of the country's top judges over the path known as Framfield 9 which runs across the High Cross Park Estate near Uckfield where Hoogstraten was building a vast luxury mansion.

And this time the judges found in her favour and reversed the earlier ruling, sending the matter back to the council to be reconsidered.

Lord Justice Schiemann said: 'What was done here was a deliberate obstruction, deliberately continued in the face of repeat objections by the Highway Authority and of convictions by the magistrates.

'Flouting'

'The council needed to face fairly and squarely that there had been a deliberate and persistent flouting of the law. In my judgment, the council, in deciding whether to submit the Order for confirmation, did not take into account the deliberate flouting of the public's rights.'

He said that this was a relevant and important consideration that should have been taken into account by the council when making its decision on whether to submit the order for diversion of the footpath for confirmation. Its failure to do so meant that the decision must be quashed.

In the decision under appeal, Mr Justice Grigson dismissed her legal challenge, ruling that the council had acted well within its powers of discretion in refusing to take immediate action and send in its workmen to clear obstacles blocking the path, despite a court order directing their removal.

But Ms Ashbrook's counsel George Laurence QC argued before Lords Justices Schiemann and Dyson and Lady Justice Arden in the Appeal Court that the judge had been wrong, and that the council had acted unlawfully.

He said the case raised important issues relating to the obligations of local authorities to protect public footpath and bridleways in the face of flagrant and provocative obstruction of such paths by landowners.

He told the court: 'The council is under statutory duty to assert and protect the rights of the public to use and enjoy such public rights of way. It has powers to remove obstructions. It has powers to consider applications for diversions to the line of a public footpath but has a clear stated policy not to proceed with making diversion orders while the existing line is blocked.

'Failed'

'In breach of those obligations and that policy, the council has unlawfully failed to remove the obstructions and promoted the making of a diversion order. Ms Ashbrook challenges those actions.'

He said she brought this case 'in the public interest' and had earlier brought successful prosecutions over the obstructions against Rarebargain in the Magistrates' Court. He said that Rarebargain's total fines stand at 86,350, with the costs order against it of 6,900, but none of this has been paid.

After her victory, Miss Ashbrook said: 'This is a victory for fighters against footpath obstructions through the length and breadth of the country, not just a humiliation for East Sussex county Council.'