An elderly farmer has been threatened by a council for refusing to pay a fine over an “historic” boundary wall he built himself more than 50 years ago.

Ron Knight, 89, has faced seven years of a “living nightmare” since receiving a planning enforcement notice from the council for removing part of a concrete wall in 2017 to allow access to his land.

Despite building the original wall himself in 1973, he was told that he needed planning permission because it was “historic”, and in a “conservation” area.

After missing the deadline to appeal, the pensioner has appeared in court multiple times and has even been threatened with a jail term.

Mr Knight vowed to go to jail instead even “if it was the last thing” he does, rather than pay a fine of nearly £3,000.

He has now been threatened with enforcement action with letters stating bailiffs could raid his home and remove items to reclaim the losses.

The escalation has left Mr Knight’s wife Jean, 81, fraught with anxiety.

But Mr Knight said the decision was “ridiculous” and vowed to block any attempt to access his home.

He said: “I’ve now got a letter from the bailiffs saying they are going to come and take what they were owed in lieu of fines.

“The whole thing is ridiculous. I cannot make out how this has ended up going to court in the first place.”

Pension deduction

Mr Knight said he reluctantly agreed to an order from a judge at the latest hearing to take £5 a month from his pension.

But he was later informed this couldn’t be done so was told he needed to visit a post office to pay it off each time – a trip that at his age, he maintains he was unable to do.

He added: “I’ve been to court so many times I’ve lost count. Last time, a judge asked me how I was going to pay, I told them I couldn’t. They asked if I would be willing to have £5 a month come out of my pension.

“I said ‘yes’ and everything went ahead. Then I got a letter saying they could no longer take it out of my pension and sent me a card to go to the post office.

“I am not doing that. The agreement with the judge is that they could take it out of my pension. That is how it is going to be.”

Last year, Mr Knight was told by a judge that he could face 45 days in prison unless he rebuilt the wall and repaid all fines.

But Mr Knight, who maintains his pleas have continued to fall on deaf ears, said he would rather be locked up “if it’s the last thing he does” than accept he has done anything wrong.

He said: “It is getting us all down. We are all sick and tired and fed up. It doesn’t matter what we say, they don’t take any notice.”

Mr Knight moved to Milborne Port, in Somerset, in 1957 and bought Cannon Court Farm with his two brothers around five years later.

When he sold it to retire to Devon in 1990 he kept six acres of land and three acres of allotments.

‘Blocked access’

Rows then began with his neighbours who he claimed had “blocked access” to his land and his “right of way” through their own developments.

To allow him access to maintain the area and stop it becoming overgrown, he said he had no choice but to remove part of the wall.

Somerset Council has defended its actions and refused to consider his retrospective application while enforcement action remains ongoing.

His wife Jean, 81, said: “We have just had a letter that control enforcement agents could come and take control of our goods.

“My husband is in his 90th year. But this has more impact on me – he is just not going to pay it.

“He cannot even walk down to the post office. It’s rarely open anyway and is a lot of all-round difficulty.

“They don’t listen anyway. It is almost laughable the whole situation but we have to live with it everyday. We have never owed a penny in our lives and have always paid up front. That is how we were brought up. But the system is not working.”

Mr Knight has lived with his wife in Bampton, Devon, since selling the farm in Somerset.

He added: “My argument is that if that wall was ours in 1973, it is our wall now. Why are they kicking up a volatile fuss? All we did was take down a part to make an entrance into our property we had no other way of getting into.

“I am not paying it – why should I, if it belongs to me. I don’t care what they say or what they do.”

Somerset Council said it was in the public interest to continue pursuing the matter, arguing that Mr Knight had caused “unjustified harm” to a protected local structure.

A council spokesman said: “We have applied the expediency test and public interest test to each step of this case.

“We consider that the creation of the access, necessitating the demolition or removal of a wide section of the historic stone wall and associated engineering work to the land behind, fails to safeguard the established character of the conservation area and has caused unjustified harm to a designated heritage asset.”