Businessman “foolhardy” over illegal Lynn tyre dump, court told
A BUSINESSMAN who illegally stored over 750,000 tyres – including more than 100,000 on a site in Lynn – while running an unlicensed waste and treatment operation has been jailed for 15 months.
Carl Steele, who ran FCM Logistics (Tyres) Ltd, was warned at least 20 times by the Environment Agency about his business at Deeping St Nicholas but instead took no action to register the operation.
When action began against him he simply rented land at King’s Lynn and in other parts of the country and set up new illegal tyre processing sites. The owners of the sites now face large bills to remove the waste tyres.
Steele ,33, of Chapel Farm, Deeping St Nicholas, had pleaded guilty to six charges relating to the illegal storage and treatment of waste tyres at sites in Deeping, King’s Lynn, Full Sutton near York, Essex and Worcestershire on dates in 2009 and 2010 at an earlier hearing.
FCM Logistics (Tyres) Ltd admitted a similar charge relating to the operation at Deeping St Nicholas. No penalty was imposed on the company which has ceased trading.
Judge Sean Morris told Steele “You have left behind a horrendous mess for other people to deal with. You knew throughout that you were trading illegally but you never stopped. Now you have left a trail of destruction for other people to pick up.
“I am quite satisfied that your motive was the long term prospect of making big money.
“It is important that the courts make it clear that when the Environment Agency make orders those orders are obeyed otherwise other people will be tempted to cock a snook and trade on regardless.
“I cannot avoid a custodial sentence in this case. This is a very serious case of its kind involving dangerous materials.”
Ruby Hamid, prosecuting, said that Steele operated a profitable business with over £1 million passing through a bank account but was able to undercut his rivals to obtain tyres because he did not pay licensing fees and so gained a larger share of the market.
She told the court that the storage of tyres was regulated because of the possible dangers to the environment of contaminants getting into the land and into water courses used for the supply of drinking water.
Ms Hamid said Steele first attracted attention from the Environment Agency back in 2009 when his site at Chapel Farm, Deeping St Nicholas was visited and thousands of tyres were found despite the site not being licensed.
Steele was treating some of the tyres and selling them off for building materials. Others were illegally exported to Hong Kong and Vietnam.
At one point 400,000 waste tyres were stored at Chapel Farm but later the numbers reduced only for investigators to discover they had been switched to other illegal storage sites.
The new sites included land at Oldmedow Road, Lynn as well as sites in Essex, Worcestershire and Yorkshire. Some of the sites were within yards of water courses and in environmentally sensitive areas.
Despite warnings Steele then continued accumulating even more tyres before his activities finally came to a halt following action by the Environment Agency.
Steele told the court that he was trying to comply with the law and needed to keep trading so that his business remained in existence. The firm has since ceased trading with over 50 employees losing their jobs.
Gordon Aspden, for Steele, said “With the benefit of hindsight his behaviour was foolhardy but he acted in good faith. He accepts that what he has done has turned out to be disastrous. He is now a broken man in terms of business.”
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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