| Council Evicts Drug Dealer | |||||
| Loses Roehampton flat for breaching tenancy rules
Twenty-year-old Nicholas Brown was convicted at Kingston Crown Court of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs after he was seen hurling wraps of heroin from a car that police were attempting to stop. Police tried to stop the car in Roehampton Lane but it sped off. Officers later recovered dozens of individually wrapped "street deals" of heroin. He was subsequently jailed for three years and nine months. By committing a serious criminal offence Mr Brown breached his tenancy conditions - part of the legal agreement he signed when given the keys to his flat in Hurstbourne House in Tangley Grove. Under the terms of this agreement, which applies to all the council's rented accommodation, all tenants, their household members, lodgers, friends and visitors are forbidden from a range of criminal and anti-social activities. Breaches of the agreement render them liable to eviction. These rules apply not just to an individual housing block or the immediate vicinity of the property, but cover the entire borough of Wandsworth. Housing spokesman Cllr Paul Ellis said: "We will take the toughest action we can against tenants who commit criminal or anti-social acts in Wandsworth. There is no room on our housing estates for people who choose to deal drugs. When you move into a Wandsworth Council-owned property, you must agree to comply with certain tenancy conditions that prohibit criminal behaviour. People who break those conditions face the very real risk of losing that accommodation." The tenancy conditions, which were drawn up in close consultation with residents living on the borough's housing estates, are designed to tackle bad behaviour that impacts on others.
Over the past three years 22 tenants have been evicted from council-owned accommodation for breaching the tenancy conditions as a result of their criminal and/or anti-social behaviour.
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