A TAXI driver has been slapped with £12,500 fine – after ‘wilfully allowing the destruction’ of a protected tree in his garden.

Sakhawat Hussain has now agreed to pay the fine at a rate of £50-a-month for at least the next 20 years.

The 52-year-old was hauled before magistrates by Stoke-on-Trent City Council after the local authority was alerted to £6,500 building work at the defendant’s Blurton home. It involved the creation of parking spaces in his garden and Hussain says he alerted the builders to the ash tree’s preservation order.

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The court heard that the defendant returned home one day in August 2021 to discover that the tree had been damaged and needed to be chopped down and that he has not seen the builders since. But he was this week unable to name the building firm and could not produce a written quote.

Prosecutor Harriet Tighe said: “As a result of the excavation work the tree was left in such a state that it could not remain there because the roots had been severed to the extent that it was not safe for the tree and stable and therefore the tree had to be removed.”

Hussain, from Blurton Road, has always denied ‘allowing the wilful destruction’ of the tree. He is currently only working part time due to a recent hip operation.

Antony Schiller, mitigating, said: “There is zero evidence that he did any of the work himself. If someone undertakes work and that work is of poor quality, shoddy quality, or to use the expression cowboy builder, if it turns out that the builder didn’t do what they promised to do or live up to that job. There is a big gap to that person being liable for damages.”