A defiant gardener who refused to remove a sign from the back of his van has had the charges dropped against him – but said he is “absolutely furious” and that the sign will remain.

Embroiled in a bitter dispute with his former car insurance firm, Alan Clark, from Maple Cross, sprayed ‘Aviva Insurance, shower of bastards’ on the back of his van.

The 68-year-old was due to appear at St Albans Magistrates’ Court today but received a letter yesterday afternoon saying the charges had been dropped due to insufficient evidence.

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He was threatened with a public order offence for words in print likely to cause shock and alarm after police claimed that a mother lodged a formal complaint against the message.

Mr Clark has always denied the charges but said he was “furious” they were dropped because he wanted to fight his corner in the court.

He said: “I can’t believe they dropped them, after all this. I had at least 40 pages’ worth of evidence and law that I was preparing to cross-examine the police with.

“The whole thing was so hypocritical – I was going to cite Plebgate to them.

“Andrew Mitchell never even appeared in a magistrates’ court for apparently calling police officers plebs. Why should I have to defend myself if he never did? The law should be the same for everybody.

"Plebgate ended up biting the police officers in the bottoms too - they were the ones who got fired at the end of it, and one of them ended up in prison."

In 2012, Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell, and chief whip at the time, was accused of calling police officers plebs. But in 2014, the officers involved issued an apology for misleading the public. 

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In a letter to Mr Clark, the Crown Prosecution Service outlined that if any further evidence appears against Mr Clark, the case will be re-opened, but he said the sign will remain on the van.

“It’s in the garage for repairs at the moment and I’ve told them not to touch the message,” he said.

“I’ll keep fighting this – I’ll fight anything if it’s the right thing to do. I was never going to pay those charges; I’d have gone to prison before I paid those courts any money.”

Mr Clark said he is still fighting his battle against Aviva Car Insurance – which claimed he lied about a no claims bonus – and said he plans to take the firm to the small claims court.

Aviva Insurance has refused to insure Mr Clark’s vehicles again but sent him a two-year no claims bonus certificate.