A landlord could take nearly 15 years to clear a £40,000 bill after a court agreed to let him pay weekly instalments.

Robert Crow, 67, of Southend, received a £35,000 fine and was ordered to pay over £4,000 costs in May for breaching 15 HMO regulations.

Magistrates in Chelmsford, Essex, described the living conditions as “appalling, deplorable and inhumane” and declared that they had “no place in a modern Britain of today”.

Crow was ordered back to Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court last week after failing to pay.

He hit out at Southend Council, branding the authority a “force for evil” and claiming officers were trying to make him bankrupt.

He said he had “just 30p” in his pocket because the council had failed to pay housing benefit to his tenants.

He said: “I have had 28 days to pay a fine of £40,000. They said they could make me bankrupt or send me to prison.

“But what’s that going to do? It would make all my residents homeless. They say I’m a nasty slum landlord, but I’m a humanitarian landlord.”

An interim agreement allowing Crow to pay £50 a week has been granted ahead of a new magistrates’ hearing on August 1, the local paper has reported.