Sark’s government took the step of publishing a strongly-worded letter from its lawyers, the Law Officers of the Crown, to representatives of Sark Electricity Ltd.
‘My client increasingly tends to the view that if your client continues to make such unreasonable and aggressive demands of my client – and more importantly, of others in the community, including those who are vulnerable and at risk – it could be said that it will risk committing the offence of harassment,’ Crown Advocate Jon McLellan wrote.
Chief Pleas and SEL have been locked in a long-running and bitter dispute over control of the island’s only power company.
Earlier this year Chief Pleas began a compulsory purchase process.
In response SEL introduced two legal levies, adding 60p per unit, and making Sark’s the most expensive electricity in the world for a month.
Although they have since been removed by the island’s price controller, they were liable to be paid for September.
In the letter Mr McLellan said his position remained that legal levies may not be lawfully charged, and that SEL no right to charge late fees on accounts.
The company has attempted to impose late fees of 2.5% or £10 a month, whichever was the larger.
Conseiller Mike Locke, chairman of the islands Future Energy Committee, confirmed that on a personal level he would not be paying the legal levies or late fees either.
‘Chief Pleas don’t think these charges are fair and reasonable,’ he said.
‘Separately and individually I have come to the same conclusion.
‘I have paid the electricity but not the levies or late fees.
‘If anyone looked at law of contract and implied contract they would come to the same conclusion also.’
Conseiller Andrew Miller, a member of P&F, took an even stronger stance.
‘It is good to see Chief Pleas standing up for the people of Sark against the owner of SEL, Alan Witney-Price, in his endless tirade of threats to cut off electricity supplies and court action against SEL’s customers who do not pay his extortionate demands for money, which has nothing to do with the cost of electricity supply,’ he said.
He alleged that the charges were ‘preying on elderly, vulnerable customers, causing them a great deal of worry and concern’.
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