The owner of a skip hire company has been given a two-year custodial sentence for waste offences including running a waste site without a permit.

David Turner, 56, from Siddal in West Yorkshire, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on 28 January following charges brought against him by the Environment Agency (EA).

Turner is currently already in prison, having been previously jailed for failing to pay over £75,000, which was claimed against him following a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing for previous waste offences. Because of this, his two-year sentence will be added onto his existing prison term.

Turner’s son Jonathan, 26, was also found guilty last week and sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months. He will also be required to complete 100 hours of community service.

A third man, Norman Stoker, 52, of Halifax was given a conditional discharge, which means he will not be charged unless he commits a further offence within a stated period of time.

Investigations included covert surveillance

Turner, with the help of his son, operated the Farrar Mill waste site in Siddal, which is located close to homes, a bowling green and Hebble Brook. The pair had a valid environmental permit for the site.

However, an EA inspection in 2011 revealed Turner was not adhering to the permit by storing excessive waste piles on his site, the biggest of which was 100 metres long and as high as 10 metres.

Turner was ordered by officers to reduce the size of the waste pile on his site but after failing to do so, had his permit revoked by the EA in June 2011.

Inspections of the site following the removal of the environmental permit revealed mixed waste was still being deposited. In addition, wood, including some that was unsuitable for burning, such as treated wood, was being burned illegally on site.

Between the years of 2013 and 2015, several investigations took place to monitor the activity of the waste site including covert surveillance, which revealed that waste was still being deposited on the site despite the lack of permit.

Turner was jailed in April 2013 for driving offences, after which his son took over the running of the site. It was also revealed at the court hearing that the pair used a skip wagon registered to Norman Stoker, who had allowed them to register it in his name so they could continue operating the site illegally.

“People who flout the rules will be pursued”

In delivering his sentence His Honour Judge Hatton QC said: “David Turner consistently thwarted and impeded [the EA] and ignored their efforts, largely for attempted financial gain.”

A spokesperson for the EA added: “We are pleased with the court’s sentence against David Turner. This defendant thought he could flout the regulations but this prison sentence sends a strong message to the community that environmental crime is taken very seriously. Environmental permitting laws exist to protect the environment and communities from the risk of harm. People who flout the rules will be pursued..”

EA working on illegal waste sites

The EA consistently works to tackle illegal waste sites, although a corporate scorecard for the second quarter of the 2015/16 financial year showed that the regulator was significantly missing targets to clamp down on high-risk illegal operations.

From a baseline of 272 in 2013/14, the EA had set a target of reducing the number of high-risk illegal waste sites in England by 24 per cent to 206 sites by the fourth quarter of this year. However, the number has actually risen to 323, an increase of 19 per cent.

The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM) is also aiming to help reduce the occurrence of waste infractions by launching its ‘Fighting waste crime’ campaign, which will run throughout 2016.

The campaign is aimed to help businesses ensure that they are complying with waste regulations and avoiding illegal operators and will focus on training and qualifications such as duty of care and technical competence.

More about how the EA tackles waste crime can be found in Resource’s feature article.