Boss jailed for dumping soil at Ryton farm
December 13, 2007
The boss of a company which illegally dumped more than 400 tonnes of waste at a Ryton-on-Dunsmore farm has been jailed.
John Bruce was given 18 months in prison after pleading guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the unauthorised deposit of controlled waste at Ryton Fields Farm, Ryton.
Bruce, aged 35, of Upper Walcote Farm, Drakes Broughton, Worcestershire, had also admitted failing to comply with an order disqualifying him from managing a company.
He had previously been jailed for dumping waste.
Prosecutor Barry Berlin said in August 2005 Stephen Postlethwaite, the owner of Ryton Fields Farm, saw lorries from UK Plant, Bruce's company, tipping loads of soil on his land.
He challenged one of the drivers as more loads were dumped the following month.
The driver phoned Bruce who claimed he had authority from someone called Robert Cooper.
Mr Berlin said Bruce had pleaded guilty on the basis that his companies had dumped 23 20-tonne loads of soil and spoil on the site in a "fly-tipping" operation.
The illegal operation had saved Bruce's companies around £3,000, based on a fee of £6 to £8 a tonne at an authorised site.
When Bruce was questioned he claimed he had been tipped off about the site and been told he could 'tip there no problem'.
Mr Berlin said Bruce had been fined £5,000 in 1999 for dumping contaminated waste which included asbestos. And in 2002 he was required to give an undertaking not to deposit waste on land known as Badger Hill, but breached that and was jailed for six months.
Tim Green, in mitigation, said: "The site where it was being deposited was not an area of natural beauty. It was already being used, or had been used, for the depositing of waste."
Judge Christopher Hodson, who jailed Bruce and disqualified him from being a company director for ten years, said: "It was not a site of natural beauty, but it was someone else's land that he chose to go and dump waste on."
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