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It is a crime to intentionally assist or encourage the commission of an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007. This would include failure to take the requisite steps to prevent (for example) environmental contamination, where a duty of care is owed by Councils to protect wildlife, habitats and human life.

Taking the positioning of houses and gardens as an example, town planners need first of all to consider where to best place houses such that poisons such as pesticides and herbicides will not detrimentally affect existing assets, one case in point being a well that supplies drinking water, at the foot of a slope on which the proposed houses are to be built.

Naturally, the applicants will be property developers looking to make as much money as possible, where the local authority will also be looking to get the developer to build as many high rate properties as they might, to be able to rake in more council taxes. Hence we have motive.

Bias is also a motive. If for example a council has been trying for a long time to deny lawful development, and has been caught out, as in the case of the historic generating buildings, the planning officers and solicitors may have a hidden agenda to make use of the generating buildings as difficult as they might, in other words continuing to be unhelpful in Wansdyke District Council terms (now Bath and Somerset).

Where two or more persons are involved in an offence, the parties to the offence may be principals (D1) or secondary parties (accessories ) (D2). Each offence will have at least one principal, although it is not always possible or necessary to identify the principal(s).

A principal is one who carries out the substantive offence i.e. performs or causes the actus reus of the offence with the required mens rea. If two or more persons do so, they are joint principals.

A secondary party is one who aids, abets, counsels or procures (commonly referred to as assists or encourages) D1 to commit the substantive offence, without being a principal offender. However, a secondary party can be prosecuted and punished as if he were a principal offender: s8 Accessories and Abettors Act 1861.

Secondary liability principles can be applied to most offences. The principles remain the same, whichever offence they are applied to. The principles are commonly used in offences of violence, theft, fraud and public order.

IDENTIFICATION OF PRINCIPLE & SECONDARY PARTIES

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PREVENTION ORDERS

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DELIBERATE POISONING OF WATER SUPPLIES - The well adjacent to the proposed development site will suffer contamination if this development proceeds. Latimer, Clarion and Wealden have not taken suitable precautions to preserve this valuable asset for the occupiers of the old generating buildings. The question as to hydrocarbon and pesticide removal was asked by letter in later January of 2021. If no reply is received, this could lead to a Judicial Review.

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LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/section/44
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/section/1

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/secondary-liability-charging-decisions-principals-and-accessories

COMPETENT AUTHORITY - During our enquiries, it was difficult to determine if Natural England or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds were competent or considered themselves a local authority. It seemed a bit like a game of pass the buck in a United Kingdom with a failed economy. By which we mean that any economy that is substantially in the red without any reasonable prospect of returning to the black, must be seen as having failed. An economy with positive reserves is an economy that is thriving. And this is one reason that the UK has failed on climate change and will have great difficulty changing its ways. Because, politicians have relied for so long on borrowing, when they had no chance of paying back - just to win elections.