Squatter fined $50,000 for illegal house

A POINT FORTIN woman has to fork out $51,000 to pay as a fine or go to jail for building a house on state lands where she has been living for the past six years.

Elizabeth Guishard, 47, began squatting in a ten-by-ten-foot house on Pundit Street, Cap-de-Ville, in 2013. She went on to construct a kitchen, then a concrete floor.

A building inspector from Point Fortin Borough Corporation served notice on her in 2017 that she had violated Section 159 of the Municipal Corporation Act.

A magistrate in the Point Fortin court found Guishard guilty and fined her $1,500 or in default three months' simple imprisonment, and also ordered the house demolished.

Guishard appealed on the ground that the sentence was too severe.

Before appellate judges Alice Yorke Soo Hon and Mark Mohammed, presiding in magisterial appeals in the San Fernando High Court, attorney Everard Davidson submitted on Guishard’s behalf that the law under which she was charged does not mandate the magistrate to order the house demolished.

Attorney Quincy Marshall, representing the corporation, invited the judges to amend the complaint.

Soo Hon and Mohammed agreed that Section 159 merely outlined the requirements for building in the borough. Guishard ought to have been charged under Section 168, they said, which mandates that any person who erects or alters any building without approval by the corporation is liable to a fine of $1,000, and $100 for every day the offence continues.

Agreeing with Marshall that the complaint should be amended, the judges cited as their reasons that the new charge arose from the same facts of the case, it alleges the same wrongdoing on Guishard’s part, and thirdly, the evidence would be the same. Mohammed said in the interest of justice, therefore, there was no prejudice to Guishard.

Both judges agreed that the magistrate ought not to have ordered demolition. Mohammed said, however, the case against Guishard was strong, as she admitted in evidence before the magistrate that she failed to comply with the notice.

The new charge alleged that she constructed a new building within the municipality without Town and Country Planning approval, in contravention of Section 168 of the act.

The judges affirmed the conviction and fined Guishard $1,000 or three months' simple imprisonment. Since the offence had continued for about two years, in which Guishard refused to remove the structure, the $100-a-day fine would amount to $73,000.

The judges agreed to remit part of that fine and ordered Guishard to pay $50,000 as a penalty for continuing the offence.

She was granted 12 months to do so or serve 12 months' simple imprisonment.