A trio of waste criminals have been given prison sentences and told to pay back nearly £250,000 after fly-tipping "on a commercial scale".
The men from East London and Essex, were convicted of dumping hundreds of tonnes of waste at several locations across Barking, Havering, Hertfordshire and Essex between 2012 and 2014.
Investigators from the Environment Agency first discovered the men had broken into a yard in Choats Road in Barking in October 2012. CCTV showed the three men dumping a mix of household waste, wood and textiles from a lorry with false number plates. There was so much waste on board, it was spilling out onto the ground.
Then on CCTV, the gang were captured the following month at a printing works at Thurrock in Essex. Over several nights, they used an articulated lorry to tip 640 tonnes of aggregate such as stones, rubble, earth, clay and chalk at the site in Oliver Road, costing the landowners more than £120,000 to clear.
In January 2013, one of the men rented a yard from Network Rail close to the M25, at Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire. Environment Agency officers later found the site was filled with rotting waste. This highly-organised criminality saw the waste wrapped in bales of black plastic. There has never been any suggestion Network Rail knew anything about the criminal activity on their land.
In October 2013, in Barking, Environment Agency investigators pursued a lorry driven by one of the men between addresses either side of the A13. He was seen dumping more aggregate at a building site in Abbey Road, soon joined by the other two men in a van.
The criminals were arrested by Essex Police back on the A13 at the Environment Agency's request. One man told the police he was just test-driving the lorry.
The final act of the 18-months of dumping waste illegally took place with a series of visits to a former landfill site at Rainham in Essex in May 2014. The men were identified by Environment Agency officers at the facility, using a lorry to move concrete blocks designed to prevent access. One man was seen dumping mixed waste there on multiple occasions.
Emma Viner, area enforcement manager for the Environment Agency said that the men "had no concern for the cost to the landowners or taxpayers, less still, the harm dumping hundreds of tonnes of waste would have on the environment. The highly-organised operation broke the law on a commercial scale, but that same law caught up with them in the end".
"The prison sentences laid down in court by the judge show crime does not pay, also proven by more than £200,000 recovered from the men in a proceeds of crime order or court costs".
At Snaresbrook Crown Court on 22 May 2019 the Judge said that the trio's criminal behaviour was motivated by money, with a financial cost to landowners, residents and the public as well as causing environmental damage. She sentenced the:
All three men pleaded guilty to a combination of counts of breaching environmental law.
