The owner of a Leominster skip hire company has been sentenced to four months in prison (suspended for two years), ordered to undertake 250 hours of unpaid work for 12 months, and pay over £29,000 in costs after illegally disposing of waste.

Martin Pugh was sentenced at Worcester Crown Court yesterday (16 December) for operating a waste disposal company, The Cheap Skip Company, without an environmental permit (contrary to the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010). Pugh had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

Case details

The charges were brought by the Environment Agency (EA) following reports that a waste skip hire business had been operating an unauthorised waste transfer operation from a site at Fordene, Leominster.

In April 2010, the EA (in partnership with Hereford Community Protection Team) launched an investigation into the company, during which officers witnessed various waste types including fridges, gas bottles, and construction materials being deposited. Further to this, officers said that on one occasion materials were being burned in a fire with 50 foot flames.

On 24 January 2011 EA officers wrote to Pugh outlining that it is an offence to deposit controlled waste on land without an environmental permit. Despite this, EA officers found that Pugh was still undertaking illegal activities and on 31 March 2011, he was invited to attend an interview under caution.

After failing to attend the interview on two separate occasions, Pugh was arrested.

Highlighting that Pugh’s offence was ‘one of a very serious nature with a number of aggravating features’ the judge sentenced Pugh to:

• a four-month custodial sentence suspended for two years;
• a community order for 250 hours of unpaid work over the course of 12 months;
• a confiscation order of £17,500 to be paid within six months (failure to pay the due sums would lead to a 10-month custodial sentence); and
• the full award of the prosecution costs of £11,922.

Activities ‘risked damaging the environment’

Speaking after the case, an Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said: “Mr Pugh failed to respond to previous warnings and was uncooperative throughout the investigation. He carried out these activities risking damage to the environment and undercutting legitimate businesses for his own financial gain.

“This prosecution demonstrates that we take waste crime very seriously and will not hesitate to prosecute if necessary, to protect the environment and local communities.”

The EA has been cracking down on waste crime through itsIllegal Waste Sites Taskforce, which has reportedly led to a ‘dramatic’ increase in the closures of illegal waste sites.

According to the EA’s 2013 Waste Crime Report, its taskforce shut down a ‘record’ total of 1,279 sites between April 2012 and March 2013, equating to a 70 per cent increase on the 2011/12 figures.

Read more about how the Environment Agency cracks down on crime in Resource 74.