Council defends fly-tipping prosecution

A SUFFOLK council has defended the £7,500 cost to council tax payers of bringing a fly-tipping prosecution to court.

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Thirty bin bags of paper rubbish were found dumped on land at Barham in March 2009. An examination of the contents led Mid Suffolk District Council to a landlord who had paid 26-year-old Levi Hilden £100 to dispose of the rubbish for him, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Unemployed Hilden claimed he had paid a third party £80 to deal with the rubbish and chose to stand trial at Ipswich Crown Court to face a charge under the Environmental Protection Act.

However, on the first day of the trial yesterday Hilden, of Severn Road, Ipswich, admitted failing to prevent another person contravening the Environmental Protection Act during the removal of controlled waste from Riverside Road, in Ipswich.

Fining Hilden £250 and ordering him to pay £1,000 towards the £7,500 cost of the prosecution, Judge John Devaux said he would have liked to have ordered him to pay more costs but was unable to because of Hilden’s financial situation. “The £1,000 I have ordered you to pay doesn’t begin to recompense the rate payers of this county,” said the judge.

After the hearing David Abbott, Mid Suffolk District Council’s environmental enforcement officer in the case, said the authority had a “zero tolerance” approach to fly-tipping.

In such cases people were given the choice of being dealt with at magistrates’ court or Crown court. There would be no deterrent if the council dropped charges if defendants chose the more expensive option of Crown court.

“He (Hilden) selected to go straight to Crown court and at that point we could drop the charges but we are exercising a “zero tolerance” policy at Mid Suffolk and, to be fair, if we say that as soon as you mention Crown court we are going to let you off, people will go for it and where is the deterrent?”

Paul Strelitz, prosecuting, told the court the cost of investigating the fly-tipping and bringing the case to court was £7,500.

When Hilden was questioned about the fly-tipping he had admitted acting as a broker between the landlord and the man he paid to get rid of the rubbish.

Mr Strelitz said the landlord who had asked Hilden to dispose of the rubbish had appeared before magistrates and had been fined for his involvement in the fly-tipping.

Matthew Edwards, for Hilden, said his client had acted as an intermediary between the landlord and the third party who disposed of the rubbish and had not personally been involved in the dumping.

Hilden was unemployed and relied on his parents for financial support, he added.