Industrial fly-tipping conviction a 'groundbreaking prosecution'

Yesterday (Wednesday) two men were sentenced to a total of 36 months for fly-tipping in London and Essex. Forensics played a part in identifying the guilty

Two men, James Kelleher, from Dagenham, east London, and Patrick Anderson, from the Irish Republic, were sentenced to a total of 36 months for fly-tipping at least 14,000 tonnes of waste at 15 sites in London and Essex. Mr Justice Philpott ordered the men to spend half their sentences in custody and half on licence.

The Environment Agency said it was a "groundbreaking prosecution". About four years ago an estimated 5,000 tonnes of waste was dumped on waste ground near services in Thurrock, just off the M25. The "industrial scale" fly-tipping saw small mountains of construction waste strewn across a huge patch of waste ground.

The Environment Agency's case worker, Owen Bolton, spent years piecing together Kelleher and Anderson's activities, linking them to the Thurrock site and many others across London. He said: "Fly-tipping has connotations of a bootload from a car. This is large scale, illegal dumping, operated as a business" For the first time, the Environment Agency employed forensic techniques used in other criminal cases - financial and handwriting analysis - to make the link between payments, lorries and people.

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