'Man of straw' is jailed over Dudley fly-tipping scheme
A 'man of straw' who fronted an illegal waste dumping operation that has left the landowner with a potential £60,000 clean-up bill has been jailed.
Alan Priest took out a lease in his own name at the Dormston Trading Estate, Burton Road, Dudley, in May last year on the understanding another party would drop rubbish on the land.
That was on the promise of £20,000 cash, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday. The dumping was reported on June 7 last year and a week later, officers from the Environment Agency visited the site and said that 400 tons of waste had been dumped, including wood, plastics, soil, paint cans and rags in a pile nearly 7ft high.
The defendant was issued with a notice to clear the hill of waste on December 12 but Priest, aged 61, of Holy Road, Rowley Regis, admitted failing to comply with the enforcement notice by January 3 at an earlier court hearing. He also pleaded guilty on October 18 to operating a waste operation without a permit on or before June 7 last year.
The court heard the clean-up bill would be around £60,000 and the landowners were considering selling, as they did not have the funds to cover it. Judge Mark Eades lamented that 'the principal people had got off'.
Passing sentence, he told Priest: "You knew you were a man of straw."
For running the waste operation without a permit Priest was given eight months in jail, and there was no separate penalty for failing to comply with the enforcement notice.
He also admitted breaching a community order imposed on May 14 for making indecent images of children, in that he did not attend pre-assessment appointments for courses on June 19 and September 19.
Mr Stephen Hamblett, defending, stressed that Priest pleaded guilty to all the charges.
Priest was sentenced to another six months in prison to run consecutively for breaching his community order, leaving him with a combined jail term of 14 months.
