'It's not over yet' vows lane row campaigner
A PENSIONER was branded a fraudster and forger in a £1m legal row over a path outside his home.
But Bernard Norton is determined to clear his name after a county court judge said he stole historical documents from an archive and altered them to prove his ownership of a private road, Ward Lane in Stanley.
Mr Norton, 73, said: "No-one has listened to me. I'm going to take this across the water to the European Court of Human Rights. They've got one hell of a fight on their hands now."
The decade-long legal dispute started when Mr Norton tried to prove to the new owners of a timber yard he owned the lane. He had allowed businesses and neighbours to use the lane but wanted to end the agreement.
Leeds County Court heard claims by the timber company, Saw Mill UK, that Mr Norton altered documents to prove his case.
Judge John Behrens ruled Mr Norton fraudulently tampered with archive documents by ripping pages out of conveyancing plans of his property from the Registry of Deeds at the West Yorkshire Archives on Newstead Road, Wakefield.
The judge also said Mr Norton altered plans to show Ward Lane was part of his property.
Mr Norton sent photocopied documents to the land registry and the timber business to convince them he owned the lane.
Records show that Mr Norton visited the archives on four occasions in 1999, around the time the wrangle started. But a copy of the 1968 original plan missing from the archive was still held on microfilm.
The judge found the case proved and ruled Mr Norton had made a fraudulent misrepresentation and was implicated in the forgery.
Judge Behrens said: "It is in my mind too much of a coincidence that both of the plans would be missing in the circumstances that they are."
Mark Cooper, the barrister for Saw Mill UK, said they would drop the fraud allegations if Mr Norton said he was not the legal owner of the land.
So far Mr Norton has been ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs, has been made bankrupt and has a possession order put on his home.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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