11th July 2016

Ship repair company fined £45,000

A Portsmouth ship building and repair company has been fined £45,000 and ordered to pay £9,000 costs following the death of a worker who was hit by a mooring rope. He suffered significant head injuries as a result of the rope breaking under tension and striking him. He was not part of the work activity, but was standing in the danger area of the operation.

An investigation by the HSE into the incident which occurred in November 2012 found that there was no management of safety during the activity, or any suitable and sufficient risk assessment.

11th July 2016

Liverpool demolition company fined £40,000

A Liverpool demolition company has been fined £40,000 and ordered to pay £7,246 costs following an incident in which a worker suffered serious crush injuries after being hit and then run over by an excavator.

21st July 2016

Leeds businessman jailed for environmental fraud

A Leeds waste operator has been jailed for seven years and six months for defrauding the electrical waste recycling industry out of £2.2million.

The defendant falsified paperwork to claim that his firm had collected and recycled more than 19,500 tonnes of household electrical waste during 2011. The company never handled the amounts of waste described and was not entitled to the substantial recycling fees paid.  Seized documents showed that the company was claiming money for waste collections from streets and properties that did not exist. Vehicles used to transfer waste were recorded as being in Northern Ireland, England, and Scotland on the same day and some vehicles did not exist at all. Documents also showed weights of waste being collected by vehicles which could never have carried such loads.

The defendant has previous convictions for fraud and illegally exporting hazardous waste to Nigeria.

25th July 2016

Dorset waste management operator given a suspended prison sentance

The operator of an illegal waste cooking oil storage and processing plant located in the Dorset countryside has received a given a four month prison sentence suspended for eighteen months, ordered to carry out two hundred hours unpaid community work and made the subject of a Criminal Behaviour Order.  He was also ordered to pay £20,000 costs.

Waste oil was being kept at the site in an ‘ad hoc and haphazard fashion’. This resulted in neighbouring properties and a stream being polluted. When two of his neighbours complained the defendant threatened them with violence. Environment Agency staff estimated that approximately 60,000 litres of mixed oils and food products were being stored at the site and some of the materials were contaminated with plastics, wood and human wastes.

Total costs for clean up of the site may exceed £50,000 for which West Dorset District Council may launch civil proceedings against the operator to recover this money. The Environment Agency had also incurred £29,500 in investigation and legal costs.