A grandfather who buys up to 30 loaves of bread each day to feed the birds, is being taken to court by his local council who blame him for the town’s vermin situation.
Brian Wilkins, 76, received a Community Protection Order last year after councillors griped that his feeding the birds was attracting vermin in areas of Hartlepool.
His daughter Paula Wilkins claims her dad — known as the ‘Bird Man of Hartlepool’ — had attempted to avoid places he was barred from but continued with his favoured activity.
Now, Hartlepool Borough Council is prosecuting Mr Wilkins for allegedly breaching his notice between January 16 and October 31 of this year.
He denied breaking the community order when he appeared at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, and his case will now proceed to trial.
What is the world coming to? For crying out loud, a trial!
His court summons said that he’d continued to ‘ignore advice and requests to stop placing food and feed for wildlife’, leading to ‘the persistent attraction of vermin’, and as a result of his ‘unreasonable behaviour’, the summons alleged he was ‘significantly impacting the quality of life’ of the people of Hartlepool.
Ms Wilkins, 57, said numerous residents support her father and disagree with the council’s ‘targeting’ of him.
She argues the council is attempting to blame her dad for attracting rats, but says they have been about for ‘ages’, partly due to takeaways in the town.
Ms Wilkins said her father buys as many as 30 loaves of bread each morning before chopping it up and taking it out to feed the birds.
‘He says it’s not a particular enjoyment… It’s the plight of these poor creatures,’ Ms Wilkins said.
‘He’s overjoyed to see them enjoying the food.
‘It saddens him because of the lack of food because of the lesser and lesser green areas and the removal of their food sources because of human expansion.
‘It’s more of a commitment than an enjoyment. All he spends his pension on is bread and seeds.’
She went on to say that after losing six important individuals in short succession, her father, who formerly owned several businesses, including a skip company and a building firm, started feeding the birds.
She said her dad told her he’d been in contact with the council and agreed he would avoid certain areas of the town such as a cenotaph and war memorial.
Ms Wilkins added: ‘He used to work but now he doesn’t have a car. He’s restricted.
‘As he’s gotten older, he’s had nothing else to do. He used to go dancing but now he’s got out of society, practically.
‘I don’t know how many years he’s been doing this for.
‘They are trying to say my dad’s the cause of rats, but that’s rubbish – they have been around for ages.
‘One woman came up to us the other day and said, ‘The people of Hartlepool back you in this’.
‘He’s not harming anybody. He’s just feeding the animals.’
At his trial in April next year, it’s believed Mr Wilkins, who represented himself in court, will say he had a ‘reasonable excuse’ for breaching the order.
Hartlepool Borough Council’s solicitor Sophie Johnston summarised several complaints the council had received about Mr Wilkins from members of the public, local brewers Cameron’s Brewery and the manager of a Grade II-listed apartment building.
Ms Johnston told the court: ‘It has been a persistent problem for the council. Since January this year, there have been further complaints.’
Asked by District Judge Stephen Hood if these accounts were correct, Mr Wilkins replied: ‘Quite correct, sir. We do it on a daily basis.
‘There [are] massive quantities of starving wildlife and these people are saying ‘don’t feed them.’
Wilkins also said he was representing Hartlepool Wildlife Feeding Programme, and added that rats were an existing issue in the town.
His daughter Paula has branded HBC’s prosecution of her dad ‘ridiculous’ and believes authorities should be going after real criminals instead.
‘The amount of money it’s going to cost taking dad to court for feeding the birds… It’s absolutely ridiculous,’ she argued.
‘They should be dealing with criminals.
‘It’s insane. My dad might have to pay the court costs as well, which is disgusting. Absolutely crazy.
‘He enjoys [feeding the birds]. He has people buying him bread and seeds. He says he struggles because of his arthritis and has cut his route down.
‘His life consists of sleeping and feeding the birds. He says he’ll do it until the day he dies – unless they ban him.’
People have taken to Facebook following the news, with one person saying: ‘If they have the space to imprison bird feeders, why the hell did they let dangerous individuals out early? What a joke.’
Another person said: ‘This makes me really angry. All the poor fella does is feed the local birds and animals. What harm does it really do? And if he gets joy from this, then who are we to stop this? Every time I see him I can’t help but smile to myself whilst humming that scene from Mary Poppins.’
‘I feed the birds in my garden, daily. With a feeder, I also sprinkle it around my garden. Am I also committing an offence? Crazy, this is absolutely crazy.’
However, some people defended the council’s actions saying: ‘Although I feel for you and him. It’s his own fault. Just move away from the businesses etc. He can still feed birds etc but he’s causing a problem the fact you think the businesses want this for him they don’t but they also don’t want the issues he’s causing.’
Another said: ‘I’m all for encouraging his passion and yes in a way it is a lovely thing that he is doing….But I have seen first-hand the dangers he puts drivers in with feeding the birds! I nearly hit him at Morrisons roundabout a couple of weeks ago because he was picking up feathers and the bird that had been hit there then threw it into the bushes.’
A GoFundMe page set up to cover any legal fees as her father battles his case compares him to Dr Doolittle, adding that he’s ‘dedicated his life to the wellbeing of our local wildlife’.
He appears to be a very thoughtful man, and it’s something that he enjoys doing. Yes, some of these birds are classed as vermin but birds have been about for a very long time and so have rats. He’s not hurting anybody by feeding them – I know some humans who will do that though.
We can all be judgemental at times, some of us more times than others, but we should keep our opinions to ourselves sometimes. How people choose to live their lives is up to them, and people might not approve but it’s his choice.
He’s merely a senior citizen attempting to kill time. He doesn’t mean any harm, and it’s quite disgusting how more and more councils are issuing killjoy, Big Brother dictates, mainly because those at the council are power-crazed, it makes them feel important, but most of all, it makes them money – follow the money, always follow the money!
Every living creature on this planet is here for a reason. If something lives, then it will have to eat something, and then that something will eat something else, and any species that becomes extinct forms a void in the food chain, and depending on the importance of that species and the health of the food chain as a whole – it can have a small effect that can be compensated or it can be catastrophic.
However, no species is completely unimportant – not even mosquitos!
What the council should have done is reach a compromise. Perhaps there is an area like a wildlife park or a horse sanctuary he could volunteer at instead. Some birds like pigeons might be classed as vermin by humans but they have a reason in the food chain and they have been here for an extremely long time.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 