THE head of a controversial travelling family faces 15 weeks in jail if he continues to break a court order aimed at protecting residents from his relatives’ activities.

Hundreds of complaints about squalor, mess, abandoned caravans, written-off cars, damaged hedges and other matters relating to David Smith’s family over several years prompted police and local councils to successfully get an antisocial behaviour order imposed on them in 2005. Since then, he has broken the order six times, including three times last autumn near Haxby and Strensall.

At his latest appearance before York magistrates, he was given a 15-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for staying too long on one site, not leaving an area from which he was barred and allowing four of the family’s ponies to eat part of a roadside hedge.

“David Smith is the paterfamilias of the Smith clan,” said Mike Hammond, for the Crown Prosecution Service. “As such, he is perhaps more culpable (than other family members), being the oldest as well.”

Acomb-born Smith, 69, no fixed address, pleaded guilty to three breaches of the order. Two other members of his family, who faced similar allegations, were then formally acquitted. In addition to the prison sentence, the magistrates ordered Smith, who is illiterate, to undergo 12 months’ probation service supervision and have education sessions. His solicitor, Kevin Blount, said he planned to appeal against the sentence.

Mr Hammond said that, under the order, the Smith family cannot remain on any campsite for more than 21 days, move to a new site within 1,500 metres of a site they have occupied in the previous 12 months or allow their animals to eat hedgerows.

But on August 8, 2008, they moved 1,200 metres to a campsite in Moor Lane, Haxby. On September 19, four of their ponies were spotted tethered on the verge of Usher Lane close to a bend, eating a roadside hedge; and the family camped on land off Towthorpe Moor Lane, Strensall, from October 5 to November 4, 2008. Mr Blount said Smith didn’t appreciate that the family hadn’t moved far enough in August.

In September, he believed the hedge belonged to a farmer who had given them permission to camp in a field nearby. In November, Smith had arranged for a relative to tow the family’s caravans to a new site on their 21st day, off Towthorpe Moor Lane, but the relative’s vehicle had broken down. As soon as it had been repaired, the family had moved on.

Smith now arranged transport so that the family could move on the 20th day on every campsite. They had no means of moving without help.

Judge to rule on family order

A High Court judge could decide on the future of the landmark anti-social behaviour order against the Smith family.

They have engaged solicitors to challenge the order. When it was made in 2005, it was among the first in the country to target a family.

Kevin Blount who was representing the family on criminal charges before York magistrates said: “The family have been referred to a specialist firm in Leeds who are in the process of asking the council to carry out a review of the order. They are seeking funding from the Legal Aid Commission for a judicial review.”

A judicial review would mean that a High Court judge would examine the court case that led to the order being made at the request of North Yorkshire County Council, Ryedale District Council and the police at Pickering Magistrates Court in 2005.

It sets out 11 conditions that the family has to abide with or face prosecution and lasts indefinitely.