A man who lost everything when his marriage collapsed now risks losing the home he shares with his teenage son.

Colin Noddings of Break Egg Hill, Billericay, appeared before Southend Crown Court charged with two offences of breaching council orders to demolish the mobile home he had placed on his land.

Noddings, 48, was served with two enforcement notices telling him to restore the plotland to its previous condition, which included removing the home, breaking up a driveway and not using the land as a home.

There was a three-month time limit set for the work to be completed which was suspended when Noddings put in an appeal, which he later withdrew. From February 1998 he then had another three months in which to complete the work.

Prosecuting on behalf of Basildon Council, barrister Michael Bedford said: "Mr Noddings, being the owner of the land, failed to take the steps required by the enforcement notice issued by Basildon District Council."

Noddings told the court he had set up home on the site after splitting with his wife. He claimed that a delay in him recieving money from the sale of the marital home forced him to seek shelter for himself and his three sons.

Noddings' defence barrister Gareth Nixon Moss told the court of his client's attempts to relocate his family, including a brief stay at his mother's home.

He was then offered a dilapidated house from which he was later evicted. It was then he was forced to move back into the mobile home.

Noddings said: "I did go to the council to find out about housing but I was told the waiting list was eight years. I went to the homeless unit and they said to come back when I had actually been evicted. I wasn't going to put me and my son on the streets."

His legal defence was that he "had done everything he could be expected to do to secure compliance with the notice".

Judge Frank Lockhart directed the jury that the case only concerned the three month enforcement period and not what had been done after this time.

Noddings was found guilty on both counts of breach of enforcement notices and sentencing was adjourned until September 3 for reports. The maximum penalty for the offence is an unlimited fine.

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