A POPULAR barber has been fined hundreds of pounds after it emerged he was dumping customers' hair illegally.

Laurence Cawley

A POPULAR barber has been fined hundreds of pounds after it emerged he was dumping customers' hair illegally.

Magistrates in Bury St Edmunds yesterday found 46-year-old Lee Haynes, of Sudbury, guilty of handling, controlling or transferring controlled waste without the necessary documents.

Haynes, of Gaol Lane, did not attend court and was prosecuted by Babergh District Council in his absence. Magistrates fined him �450 and ordered him to pay �300 towards prosecution costs.

The offence relates to his women's hair salon in Gaol Lane and comes in the wake of a similar offence at his men's salon, also in Gaol Lane, called Lee's Barber Shop.

Caroline Watling, prosecuting for the council, said although the hair clippings were not “dangerous” in the traditional sense of the term, they were considered dangerous because they might contain chemicals such as bleach which could be harmful to the public.

She said: “Mr Haynes did not have any contract for the collection of trade waste. He found other methods for disposing of his trade waste.”

Haynes, she said, had been asked to produce documents required under the Environmental Protection Act stating how he disposed of his controlled waste.

She said the law was designed to ensure that all controlled waste was disposed of properly and that all those involved in the process knew exactly what it was they were getting rid of and where it had come from.

“The investigation began with a routine inspection of Lee's Barbers - he has pleaded guilty to a similar offence there. He was not at the shop when the inspection happened and he had not left the documents in the shop for inspection.”

She said he was invited to attend an interview under caution with council officers but Haynes had declined.