A skip-hire boss has been given a six-month suspended prison sentence for failing to clear overflowing waste from skips at a site in Essex.
Between 2024 and 2026, Roy Brett, 66, refused to comply with repeated orders to clear the waste that overflowed from an increasing number of skips.
Brett’s company, RJ Brett Contracts Ltd, was also fined £3,000 by Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court for similar offences.
Chair of the bench Andrew McGregor said the site ‘posed multiple risks to the environment and human safety, including by fire’.
Brett ignored multiple warnings about the amount of skips and uncovered waste built up at the site and how it placed the environment at risk.
He claimed he ‘didn’t do e-mails’, so missed the written instructions to remove the waste.
The yard was exposed to the elements, had no sealed drainage, and was covered in wood, metal, textiles, and construction waste.
As little space was free and much of the waste was scattered on the ground, this created a potential fire risk.
Commenting on the sentencing, Lesley Robertson, Environment Agency, said: “It wasn’t credible for an operator like Roy Brett, director of three other waste companies and with years of experience, to say he misunderstood the need for an environmental permit or justify having an exemption from needing one.”
“The operation undercut rivals by avoiding permitting and subsistence fees. Brett and his company also evaded permit conditions designed to protect the environment.”
Brett was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to remove all waste from the site.
He was also ordered to undergo 30 days of rehabilitation activities and told to pay a £154 victim surcharge. RJ Brett Contracts Ltd was fined £3,000 and has to pay a victim surcharge of £1,200.
