A geologist has been fined $500 after admitting stealing boulders from a neighbour's property in order to build a sea defence wall.

Peter Prescesky, 74, of Saucos' Hill, Smiths, also pleaded guilty to three counts of breaking building regulations when he failed to tell planners that work on the wall had begun.

And Island Construction, the company hired by Prescesky to carry out the building work, was also fined for trespassing onto neighbours' property.

The dispute between the neighbours began in 1995 in the aftermath of Hurricane Felix which devastated huge areas of the southern shoreline.

In court yesterday lawyer Ms Juliana Jack, representing Prescesky, claimed that her client was forced to build the wall in a desperate bid to save his house from falling into the sea.

"The south shore outside his house was totally destroyed,'' she said.

"Waves up to 20 feet high had stripped away 30 feet of land putting his house just yards from the cliff face.

"Boulders were thrown everywhere, there was total destruction.'' Ms Jack claimed that Prescesky took boulders from his own land to build the first level of the wall in the summer of 1996.

He then brought in Island Construction to carry out the second phase of the plan which required heavy machinery.

But when the equipment was unobtainable it was decided that a temporary ramp could be built to the new level using more boulders.

"They collected the rest of the boulders to build a ramp but ran out,'' Ms Jack said.

"The mistake which Mr. Prescesky accepts is that they agreed to use other boulders but they would replace them as soon as they had built a ramp. It was always intended to be temporary.

Ms Jack said that her client agreed to return the boulders to his neighbour as soon as he realised that he had been upset by his actions. He wrote two letters to the neighbour but received no reply.

She also said that Prescesky had been granted planning permission but failed to contact the Planning Department when work began because he thought that was the responsibility of the company carrying out the work.

Representing Island Construction, lawyer John Cooper, said that the engineers building the wall for Prescesky had operated under his instructions and could not be blamed for not knowing where the neighbour's boundary started.

But Senior Magistrate Will Francis said that both Prescesky and Island Construction had been wrong to go onto the neighbour's property.

"The way I see it this is an offence of trespass and I take the point that a man is entitled not to have his property trespassed on,'' he said.

"More attention should have been given to looking at the boundaries.'' But Mr. Francis accepted that the breach of building regulations by Prescesky had been an oversight and he granted a conditional discharge on all three counts.