A PENSIONER has been fined more than £5,000 after piling up junk and old furniture in his garden for FIVE years.

Geoffrey Hobson, 78, tormented his neighbours by dumping furniture, old sheds, rubbish bags and other junk outside his home.

He refused to clean up the mountains of mess despite residents begging him to get rid of it.

The entrance to the back garden of the four-bed house in Beckenham, south east London, was barricaded with discarded dining chairs and scraps of former sheds.

The semi-detached property, worth around £700,000, was choked with overgrown vegetation and a variety of abandoned items.

Hobson's fed-up neighbours had complained about the filthy back yard for five years, seeing the OAP slapped with numerous warnings.

An "untidy site notice" was issued last March following the series of complaints dating back to 2016.

Despite family members even intervening to encourage Hobson to clean up his act, the former builder refused.

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The defiant 78-year-old was then hauled before the courts as his garden remained in disarray.

But Hobson did not turn up to the hearing at Bromley Magistrates' Court, so he was tried in his absence.

He was found guilty and received the statutory maximum fine of £1,000 and was ordered to pay the entire £4,034.50 in prosecution costs.

Angela Page, executive councillor for Public Protection and Enforcement at Bromley Council, said: "There is a legal criterion of what constitutes an untidy site.

"And when a property falls below this standard and becomes extremely untidy, then we can and will take action to protect the amenity of the street and its residents."

She continued: "We will always seek to engage directly with the resident and ask that improvements be made.

NAUGHTY NEIGHBOURS

"If, despite this, the situation does not improve then the decision will invariably be made to prosecute, which shows just how seriously we take this matter."

We previously told how an elderly couple complained their neighbour's overgrown garden has knocked £20,000 off their house value.

Retired RAF musician Fred Sweenie, 82, said the tall jungly trees have blocked any sunlight coming through to his family home.

He even claimed the excessive shrubbery led to rats running around their property.

And another homeowner's garden was so neglected, the suffocating weeds and brambles managed to hide a BOAT underneath.

But the resident mysteriously disappeared, leaving the local council to tidy up the mess.

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