An imprisoned waste crime boss has been sentenced to a further three years in jail, after failing to pay back the proceeds of his illegal waste business.
Hugh O’Donnell, 65, who is currently in prison serving a four and a half year sentence for waste crimes and money laundering, was yesterday (30 May) jailed for an additional 1036 days at Westminster Magistrates Court after being found of failing to pay the full £917,000 confiscation order from his previous sentencing.
O’Donnell’s illegal waste business reportedly netted millions of pounds in profit by taking ‘skip loads’ of construction and demolition waste to a site in Aldermaston, Berkshire, to be dumped in an illegal landfill.
He was first jailed in 2009 for possession of an illegal firearm, uncovered during an Environment Agency (EA) investigation, and was then sent back to prison the day after his release in 2011 for money laundering and waste offences.
On 3 May 2012, O’Donnell was ordered to pay the sum of £917,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act for the waste crimes he was convicted of in 2011, but still owes a total of £578,845.71. According to the EA, O’Donnell ‘refused to pay’ the remaining amount, leading to Westminster Magistrates Court to sentence him to a further three years in prison.
On completion of this third sentence, O’Donnell will have served the longest time in prison than any other criminal for waste related crime.
Speaking of the sentencing, Angus Innes, Prosecution Team Leader for the Environment Agency, said: “This investigation has been one of the biggest and most complex ever undertaken by the Environment Agency and our partner agencies, in particular the London Regional Asset Recovery Team, to proactively target an organised criminal gang running an illegal waste site.
“This sentence sends out a message that failure to pay proceeds of waste crime is dealt with by the courts seriously and you can and will be sent to jail until the monies are paid in full.”
Arrest on runway
Hugh O’Donnell is the second waste criminal to be sent to prison this month. Amrik Johal, 55, was jailed for three years after he was arrested while boarding a flight to Delhi on 16 May 2013 without paying the full amount of a £881,513 confiscation order – money he needed to pay up for waste crimes he was convicted of in 2010.
Innes added: “The Environment Agency wants to make sure that serious waste crime doesn’t pay, we don’t just catch criminals - we want to confiscate the assets they’ve gained from crime".
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