Kidderminster recycling company directors avoid jail after two major fires
Two former directors of a Kidderminster-based skip firm have escaped prison after their actions caused two major fires and a pollution incident.
David Lawrence and Andrew Gibson, who were directors at Lawrence Skip Hire Ltd, were instead handed suspended prison sentences and ordered to carry out community orders at Worcester Crown Court on July 4.
The court had heard that waste management failures at the company led to two major fires and a pollution incident categorised by court sentencing guidelines as being at the highest level.
Lawrence, of Seymour Road, Kidderminster, was the company's operations director and designated technically competent manager. Gibson, of Wood Lane, Lichfield, was the company chairman and sales director.
They ran a waste recycling facility under the trading name of Lawrences Recycling and Waste Management Ltd based at the Forge, in Stourport Road, under an environmental permit. The directors at the time claimed the site was the largest indoor waste management facility in Europe.
Between August 2012 and December 2012, the company stored excessive quantities of waste at the site in breach of the environmental permit, despite warnings given to the company by the Environment Agency.
The court heard that these failures to properly assess the risk of fire and manage the waste appropriately on the site culminated in a serious fire, when waste self-combusted at the company premises in December 2012. The fire burned for nearly a week.
In spite of that fire and further warnings from the Environment Agency and Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, the company continued to accept and store thousands of tonnes of waste to avoid the cost of disposal and in a way that put the environment at risk – leading to a second fire at the site in June 2013. The fire burned for eight weeks and resulted in a major impact to the environment and local community.
The court heard that the water used to tackle the fire was contaminated by the burning waste and it flowed into the nearby Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal – resulting in the deaths of 3,000 fish and threatened drinking water supplies.
Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service described the fires as two of the biggest firefighting operations it had ever had to deal with.
The company did not have building insurance after the first fire and went into administration in September 2013 – leaving the Environment Agency, fire service, Wyre Forest District Council and Worcestershire County Council to pay thousands of pounds to demolish the building, extinguish the fire and control pollution.
Lawrence and Gibson had both pleaded guilty to offences in January and were sentenced on July 4.
His Honour Judge Cartwright found that both Lawrence and Gibson had been negligent in the lead up to the fire in December 2012. He found that in the lead up to the fire in June 2013, both men had ignored warnings about the risks to the environment.
He concluded that Lawrence had acted recklessly given that in his position the waste was ‘before his eyes’ and Gibson had continued to act in a negligent manner and continued to encourage customers to send their waste to the site.
Lawrence, 52, was sentenced to nine months suspended for two years and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work. Gibson, 55, was sentenced to four-and-a-half months suspended for two years and ordered to complete 90 hours of unpaid work.
Speaking after the court case, an Environment Agency spokesman said: "These directors operated their waste recycling facility in a way that blighted the community with flies, vermin and odour, and put people’s health and businesses at risk by not adequately assessing and controlling the risks of fire.
"They continued to operate with flagrant disregard after the first fire with no insurance and no fund set aside to manage these risks leaving the taxpayer to pick up the bill when an incident occurred and creating misery for their neighbours.
“We have pursued this case on behalf of the community and multi-agency partners. These directors now have criminal records as a result of the environmental offences they committed and have to payback the community through unpaid work orders”
