A skip hire operator has been sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for 12 months, to go with a £400,000 confiscation order for the unlawful operation of a waste transfer station.

Victor Andrew Williams, 50, owner of Vic’s Skips, ran an illegal waste treatment facility at his home in Ty Croes in Anglesey from February 2009 to March 2013.

An investigation by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) placed a surveillance camera on the site in November 2012, which found that Williams was using his land as an unauthorised waste transfer station to bulk up waste for onward disposal.

Footage attained through the surveillance also contained evidence of material being burnt on the site.

From March 2012, Williams was a registered waste carrier, which enabled him to take waste from one place to another, but not to store it. NRW says that as a registered waste carrier he would have been aware of his duty of care responsibilities.

Environment officers entered the premises in March 2013, and found a number of skips of sorted waste present on site.

In March last year, Williams appeared in Caernarfon Crown Court, facing two counts of ‘operating a regulated facility otherwise than in accordance with an environmental permit’, thus breaking the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010.

He pleaded guilty to one and not guilty to the other, after which the prosecution decided that a trial was not necessary.

The investigation found that Williams had made £354,834 ‘tax-free profit’ by taking money paid to him for hiring skips. This was supplemented by costs Williams avoided paying for taking waste to landfill, and, as his income was undeclared, tax and child credits of £96,000.

The court heard that Williams had paid Gwynedd Skip and Plant Hire £25,000 to dispose of some waste, but that much of the rest, mainly rubble from construction projects, had been illegally dumped at Nant Newydd quarry.

A £400,000 confiscation order was filed at a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing in May, but sentencing was adjourned until 25 September due to Williams’s ill health.

Profiting from waste crime ‘will not be tolerated’

Following the sentencing, Tim Jones, Natural Resources Wales Executive Director Operations North and Mid Wales, said: “We hope the outcome of this case will send out a positive message to those in the waste industry, that Natural Resources Wales will not tolerate those who seek to profit by breaking the law, harming local communities or damaging the environment.

“The motivation behind the crime was financial. The site did not have the necessary permissions and consequently the infrastructure to protect the environment and it undercut legitimate permitted sites.

“Disposing of waste illegally can harm the environment and undermines businesses that invest in the required measures.

“It is essential that we take action in such cases to protect people and the environment, as well as safeguarding the market place for legitimate operators.”

In February, the Welsh Government and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) released a joint consultation on enhancing enforcement powers regarding waste crime.

Read more about the Welsh and English waste crime consultation.