A court has handed out fines amounting to £121,520 to two waste company operators and a landowner for waste crime activities in Nottinghamshire.

The penalties relate to ‘illegal waste site operations’ carried out between 2009 and 2011 by waste management firm, Worksop Waste Services Ltd (now in liquidation), and parent company, demolition contractors, Bloom Plant Ltd.

In accordance with the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and the Environmental Permitting Regulations 2007 and 2010, the Environment Agency (EA) brought the defendants to court for various offences including the ‘repeated illegal burning of controlled waste’.

The EA said that this not only caused disruption to local residents, but also ‘posed human health risks and caused pollution to the environment’. All defendants pleaded guilty to the charges.

Case details

At a hearing at Nottingham Crown Court on Friday (22 November), the court heard that having won a demolition contract for the former Dormer Tools site in Worksop, John Kelvin Bloom, Director of Bloom Plant Ltd and Worksop Waste Services, used the site to set up an ‘illegal waste transfer station’ as part of Bloom Plant Ltd’s operations and burn various waste materials.

The firm was also found to be running another illegal waste transfer station in Gamston and supplying contaminated aggregate material for construction projects.

Richard Morris, Manager of Worksop Waste Services Ltd (owned by Bloom Plant Ltd and now in liquidation) was also found to be involved in illegal activity, ‘storing waste in unpermitted areas, burning waste and depositing waste for burning at the former Dormer Tools site.’ The company’s offences also included storing asbestos in an exposed skip at the site.

Sentencing

Various mitigating factors were presented by the defence, including the guilty pleas entered, the financial losses already endured by the companies, the lack of lasting environmental damage, and the good character of the defendants. Nevertheless, in his sentencing remarks, HHJ Lea QC stressed the seriousness of the case given ‘the complete disregard for environmental legislation’.

Bloom Part Limited was fined a total of £21,000 and ‘ordered to pay £25,000’ in costs. The company was also instructed to pay a further £25,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) relating to ‘financial benefit obtained as a consequence of their criminal conduct’.

Additional penalties were as follows:

• John Kevin Bloom was fined £13,500, charged £20,000 in costs and £5,000 POCA;
• Richard James Morris was fined £4,000, charged £1,000 in costs and £1,000 POCA; and
• Michael Bowness, the landowner, was fined £2,500, charged £2,500 in costs and £1,020 POCA.

The police also seized over £44,000 from the home of John Kelvin Bloom on the day of a joint raid with the Environment Agency.

Speaking after the case, an Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said: “This case has taken nearly three years to bring to prosecution, but it shows that we will pursue environmental criminals for as long as it takes. Waste crime is a serious offence with tough penalties. It can damage the environment, blight local communities and undermine those who operate legally.”

The court hearing is the latest success for the EA in its crackdown on illegal waste sites. According to a recent report, the authority shut down a ‘record’ total of 1,279 sites between April 2012 and March 2013 alone. At an international level, two new INTERPOL projects have also been set up to tackle waste crime.

Read more about the EA’s waste crime prevention activities or find out what the average day of an Investigation Officer entails in Resource 74.