16130/1FARMER Adrian Hale has been fined £150 and faces £75 court costs for refusing to evict a 79-year-old Chris Pardue from the rusting library van he has lived in for more than 40 years.

Hale appeared before magistrates in Devizes on Thursday for breaching an enforcement notice served by Kennet District Council requiring him to get rid of the van from Lottage Farm, Aldbourne.

Hale said he had to plead guilty because the 50-year-old former Hampshire library van, which Mr Pardue has lived in for more than 40 years, was still on his land.

But he said the only way he could have complied with the law would have been to put Mr Pardue, who will be 80 next month, out on to the public road.

The farmer said he had applied for planning permission for the van when Mr Pardue first arrived in 2000.

He said his application had initially been looked upon favourably by Kennet but said new officers later assigned to the case took a different view.

Michael Rowan, prosecuting, said the local authority had a duty to uphold planning law.

Hale said he had tried to get alternative accommodation for Mr Purdue. But Mr Rowan said Kennet had no record of an application for homelessness.

Presiding magistrate Jill Petchley told Hale he should take Mr Pardue, who is practically doubled up with arthritis, straight to Kennet District Council's headquarters in Devizes and register him as homeless.

On Tuesday Hale told the Gazette that immediately after the court case he went to Kennet and registered Mr Pardue as homeless.

Sarsen Housing had since rung to say they had a flat available in sheltered accommodation in Marlborough for Mr Pardue.

Mr Pardue said he would be happy to continuing living in the van.

But he said: "It looks as though I have no choice but to move into a flat if the council says I can't stay here."