Builder gets rid of gypsies by digging a moat around their camp

Gypsies proved no match for a Bedford builder who forced them off his land by digging a moat around their camp.

Francis Shiner resorted to the measures when the gypsies set up camp on the disused car park of a building site in Bedford and refused to leave.

The gypsies were asked to leave because they were hindering work on the site owned by SDC Construction, but they refused.

According to the Daily Mail, workers put 2.5m high metal fencing around the camp and left a 1.5m gap for the gypsies to leave through.

When the gypsies still refused to leave, and actually hung their washing on the fence, Shiner sent in a digger to create a moat around the camp, telling them they could leave or be trapped.

They left that evening.

Shiner told the newspaper: “We spoke to them and requested them to move on, but they said they could not do that.

“That is when we advised them that a digger would be around later in the day and if they were still there they would be trapped in – they could please themselves.”

A Bedfordshire police spokesman said if the gypsies had been trapped in the moat, the landowners would not have broken the law.