Fines for toxic waste... the law is a joke.

[dowie]

Saw this story today, man dumped 900 tonnes of toxic waste in an industrial unit in Wales... he's ordered to clear it up but doesn't and so after 3 years he gets his day in court (waste still isn't removed) and he pleads guilty.

https://metro.co.uk/2022/01/06/soli...of-toxic-waste-on-industrial-estate-15876900/

His penalties for this:

"a 26-week sentence, suspended for a year." - so utterly meaningless for someone like him.

"He was fined £2,677 on top of £115 in costs, and will have to do 80 hours of unpaid work."

Fine is meaningless too he presumably made far more money from dumping this stuff, 80 hours of community service is a ball ache perhaps but it's still minor in comparison... 80 hours work in return for being able to enjoy the lucrative profits of a crime venture you admitted to and didn't have to spend a day in prison for is a pretty sweet deal.

Surely he should be paying the full cost of having another firm come and remove the waste? Make stuff like this unprofitable and you actually have a deterrent against it, otherwise it's just a cost of doing business for people who are happy to break the law.

 

[dowie]

Sure seems like the message is illegally dump toxic waste and you'll get a slap on the wrist after first being asked nicely to remove it

There was a similar story a few years back too, coincidentally the guy involved in this one has the same surname too:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...lub-owner-Glenn-Tamplin-fined-waste-dump.html

Bigger fine this time:

The court found Tamplin had acted negligently to a high degree in committing the offences. He was fined a total of £45,000 and ordered to pay £30,789 costs.

Manns Waste Management was fined a total of £50,000 and ordered to pay £18,648 costs.

Though I'm not sure he'll struggle to pay that and I do wonder if a profit was still made even when you include the fines:

 

[dowie]

Its not so strange, the fine, when you know that if he declared bankruptcy then the EA have to pay to clean it up.

They can't do that as they don't have the funds themselves.
But, now he's been found guilty the business will have to become permitted- by the EA.
They charge according to the hazardous rating and each infringement pages up the price of a permit -EA quids in.

The land owner will most likely end up footing the bill as its now a known waste hazard.

The business is shut down, he has another business now as does the previous director according to companies house. You can’t just declare bankruptcy if you have assets, the fines apply to him as a result of his criminal behaviour.

I'm not a law expert but does this mean if he doesn't tidy up he will end up doing his sentence?

I’d be surprised, it’s taken them three years to take him to court initially, I suspect that’s it. Not sure whether he can be tried again for the same offence here unless he adds more waste or does the same thing elsewhere?

 

[dowie]

But what assets does he legally own?
Most likely nothing in his name.

The previous director appears to have a massive house on a road where the average house is worth over 1 million, not sure about the guy prosecuted though.

In the second case mentioned from a few years ago, that guy also has a massive house and a bunch of cars in the picture posted above.

I'm not sure on what basis you'd assume he has nothing in his name.

I also wonder why they haven't gone for a fraud conviction - presumably the customers thought they were paying for recycling services.

 

[dowie]

His house could be mortgage up to the hilt with very little equity with the bank owing the majority.

Cars could be on pcp or leased through the business.
Having worked over a decade in the oil & waste industry i know full well these people know how to avoid prosecution.

Could be but seems rather unlikely given the sheer number of flash cars.

They haven't avoided prosecution, the guy in the first instance has been prosecuted and plead guilty (as has the guy in the second case too) the prosecutions have lead to (relatively) limited consequences for them.