Elderly resident loses appeal

ELDERLY Traveller Mary Flynn lost her appeal yesterday to challenge her eviction from Britain’s biggest illegal Travellers’ site.

The case was heard as hundreds of residents, bolstered by supporters, barricaded themselves inside Dale Farm in Basildon, Essex, to resist the clearance of the site.

Flynn, 72, suffers breathing problems and uses an electric nebuliser and has been a crucial protagonist in the bid to stop the clearance.

Her counsel, Stephen Cottle, said yesterday that she was “too frail” to be evicted, and “dispossessing” her of her land would be “disproportionate” under human rights laws.

But Lord Justice Pill rejected the arguments.

He dismissed Flynn’s application for permission to appeal against a High Court judge’s refusal last month to grant a temporary injunction to halt or delay the evictions.

Yesterday’s decision comes at the end of a decade-long legal fight over unauthorised development of the former scrapyard next to a legal Travellers’ site.

It involves 51 unauthorised plots on six acres, home to up to 400 people. An estimated 200 supporters and residents remain on site.

Stephen Cottle, appearing for Flynn, said she was being “dispossessed”, and it was arguable there had been an unlawful interference with her right under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights to a private and family life.