Portsmouth waste tyre boss gets suspended jail sentence and ordered to pay £13,500
13 May 2014 04:18 PM
The Environment Agency has
prosecuted a man who illegally stored more than 780 tonnes of waste tyres at
his Portsmouth waste facility.
Mr Brian Wade, sole director of
Southern Rubber Products Ltd, based out of Unit 6, West Building, Claybank
Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire, appeared at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court on
Monday 12 May. Mr Wade pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 8 weeks
imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, in addition to a curfew order to remain
indoors between 7pm and 6am (electronic tag) plus an £80 victim
surcharge.
Mr Wade’s company,
Southern Rubber Products Ltd, was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay the
£3,511 costs claimed.
The court heard that Southern
Rubber Products Ltd collected, stored, treated and exported waste tyres from
the Portsmouth premises. In order to carry out this operation a permit is
required from the Environment Agency.
Some exemptions exist to allow
certain waste activities to take place without the need for a permit. For these
to be valid strict criteria have to be met. Southern Rubber Products Limited
had a number of exemptions in place for the site but, due to the vast number of
tyres and their illegal storage, none of the exemptions covered the waste
activities on site.
On 29 August 2013, Environment
Agency Officers inspected the site, where approximately 780 tonnes of waste
tyres were seen to be deposited. The site had been vacated by the company and
the tyres had been left behind, leaving the landlord with the responsibility to
clear them from the land. The total cost for the removal of the illegally
deposited tyres was £24,959.
Mr Wade was interviewed by the
Environment Agency and admitted that he was the sole director of the company
and that he was responsible for depositing the tyres on site. He stated that
there were issues in getting rid of the tyres, that the landlord wanted him off
the premises and that he had health problems.
Kirsty Mayo of the Environment
Agency said:
It is very disappointing that Mr
Wade continued to deliberately operate an illegal site despite having an
understanding of his responsibilities. He was registered with us for some
exemptions, so he had little excuse in claiming he was unaware his waste
obligations.
The net is closing in on people
who think they can make easy money undercutting legitimate waste businesses by
putting the local environment at risk. We are constantly gathering information
on illegal waste sites, criminal activities and environmental crime in
Hampshire and across the south east.
We are taking a zero tolerance
approach against offenders. In cases like this where individuals consistently
operate illegally, we have absolutely no hesitation in prosecuting them as we
want to make sure that waste crime doesn’t pay.
The Magistrates presiding over
the case stated that their sentence was reached due to a number of aggravating
factors including the offences being a deliberate act over a long period of
time.