Businessman jailed for clearing native bush

By ANNE BESTON and SCOTT MacLEOD

A man who cleared native bush on his land without a permit has been jailed for five months.

The judge who sentenced Waitakere company director Andrew Borrett said Borrett had to "experience the inside of prison to understand the full reality of his offending".

In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Fred McElrea jailed Borrett for 20 weeks.

He and his wife Susan were fined a total of $17,500, including costs. A jury found Borrett guilty on charges of illegally clearing protected bush and conducting earthworks illegally after a court ordered him not to.

His wife escaped a jail sentence despite being found guilty on four of seven charges, including permitting the offences to occur.

It was the second time in four years that the couple had been convicted of charges involving clearing areas of native bush, which is protected under a district plan.

Borrett was denied home detention, partly because the crimes took place at his property.

Lawyers and environmentalists contacted by the Herald were yesterday stunned by the jail term.

Resource Management Act lawyer Mark Cooper, QC, said he couldn't recall it happening before. "But the act provides for it and has done since the beginning so presumably those words have to mean something," he said.

Waitakere City Council environment chair Penny Hulse said Borrett had only himself to blame.

"The Environment Court has been sending increasingly strong signals it intends to deter this sort of environmental vandalism," she said.

Ms Hulse said she hoped Borrett would be the first and last person jailed for deliberately damaging the environment.

"This was also trial by jury so it's not the council overreacting," she said.

In 1999 the couple pleaded guilty to similar charges involving large-scale bush clearance and earthworks and were fined $18,000, including costs.

That conviction meant that they were under an Environment Court order, which they breached when they cleared regenerating bush on their 4ha Red Hills property.