TWO planning officials have denied acting with malice towards a builder who has taken eight public officials and the States Employment to court claiming they “ruined” his life.

Michael John Neville – who had a business buying, refurbishing and reselling properties – has brought civil legal action in the Royal Court against the officials accusing them of “misfeasance in public office”.

Mr Neville alleges that he was unfairly targeted by planning officers when he was served an enforcement notice, and eventually convicted, for placing uPVC windows on two listed properties he had bought.

Unplasticised Polyvinyl Chloride (uPVC) is a low-maintenance building material used as a substitute for painted wood.

In 2010, Mr Neville was found guilty in the Magistrate’s Court of breaching planning laws and fined £1,000.

He later successfully appealed against his conviction in the Royal Court.

Advocate Steve Meiklejohn, defending, told the trial that the bar for misfeasance in public office was high.

He said: “Good faith mistakes or the taking of good faith decisions on an erroneous basis do not constitute misfeasance.”

Former planning enforcement officer Keith Bray and planning officer Marion Jones, the first two defendants to give evidence during the trial, denied ever targeting Mr Neville personally.

Mr Bray said he had “made mistakes”, which were “down to the language of planning, which can be quite technical sometimes”.

He admitted that despite an enforcement notice being a “serious” matter, he had not read the full file relating to Mr Neville due to time pressure.

A former police officer, he drew an analogy to having to attend the scene of a crime quickly in his previous role.

The court heard how he sent an email in which he said Mr Neville did not have the “grit” to fight the department, though Mr Bray argued that this was normal language to use in the workplace.

Mr Bray added that he liked Mr Neville, adding: “I wish him luck and hope he can get over the bitterness he holds in his heart.”

Ms Jones, who was allegedly part of a group of officers in the Planning Department who acted out of “malice” towards Mr Neville, denied that this was the case.

Advocate Mike Preston, acting for Mr Neville, asked her: “Did you have it in for him?”

She replied: “I did not.”

She said she was “surprised” to hear that Mr Neville believed so, adding: “I had so little interaction with Mr Neville”.

Ms Jones previously refused a planning application by Mr Neville, the court heard, but she said that she made decisions based on merit, following regulations and the Island Plan.

Officials can deal with around 100 applications a year, she said, often with repeated applications from developers. She added: “I don’t believe my intention was to cause him harm.

“As planning officers, we have to stick to the planning laws and policies that are given. We have sympathy with the applicants, we’re not sitting there [saying] ‘very good, that’s another refusal’. It would not have been directed at Mr Neville in a personal way.”

Advocate Preston previously told the trial that Mr Neville was “deeply hurt” by his alleged ordeal and “his treatment has impacted on his life in such a way, as he will candidly say, that it has ruined his life”.

Mr Neville’s house-flipping business, he said “has never recovered”.