Just 1 in 450 f ly-tipping crimes ends up in court
Farce as new figures reveal a MILLION cases every year but...
JUST one in 450 fly-tipping cases in England leads to a prosecution, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Shocking figures show that out of 997,553 incidents of flytipping last year, only 2,243 were dealt with successfully in court. And of those prosecuted, just 25 people were sent to prison.
Fly-tippers can be jailed for up to five years but the most common outcome is a fixed-penalty fine, which is often less than the cost of paying to use a licensed tip or waste disposal site.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) revealed that 171 authorities in England – 41 per cent – did not bring any prosecutions at all in 2017- 18. Just 68,618 f i xed penalty notices were handed out – 6.8 per cent of the total number of offences.
In one shocking example of the soft justice approach, a man caught red- handed by police dumping seven bags of builders’ waste on a country l ane in Flamstead, Hertfordshire, was released after he apologised. Hertfordshire Police said flytipping was a ‘frustrating’ issue but that the response had to be proportionate.
Another man who was tracked down after dumping rubble and household waste at a beauty spot in the New Forest, Hampshire, was handed a fine of just £400.
In 47,000 cases of fly-tipping in 2017-18, councils wrote ‘warning letters’ to culprits.
The worst-hit local authority last year was Leeds. It recorded more than 26,000 individual instances of illegal waste dumping, including nearly 1,700 occasions where ‘white goods’ such as fridges were abandoned.
Birmingham City Council was forced to deal with more than 1,500 dead animals which had been deliberately dumped.
Sheffield reported the highest number of abandoned tyres – 346, or nearly one a day – while the London borough of Haringey was forced to clear up more than 10,600 bulging black bin bags dumped by householders.
In some parts of the UK, councils are handling at least 70 incidents each day.
Last year, the Government introduced tough new penalties, including a fixed-penalty notice of £400, an unlimited fine and up to five years in prison for those caught fly-tipping. Vehicles used to commit offences can also be seized and destroyed by the local authority.
The Local Government Association (LGA) said the cost to taxpayers of clearing up flytipping rose to £ 57 million in 2017- 18. Campaigners warn that the epidemic is being driven by gangs of unregistered ‘waste carriers’, reductions in weekly rubbish collections, and the closure of recycling centres.
LGA environment spokesman Martin Tett said courts should be handing out more severe punishments. He added: ‘For serious and repeat offenders, I would
‘Culprits get away with a rap on the knuckles’
like to see greater financial penalties by the courts on the culprits to act as a serious deterrent and not just a light rap on the knuckles.’
A small number of councils have a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach and prosecute a far greater proportion of cases in a damning illustration of the failure elsewhere to crack down.
Those areas tackling the menace include Buckinghamshire, where offenders are 16 times more likely to be caught and prosecuted compared to the national average for England.
In Wales, from next month Neath Port Talbot Council will publicly i dentify those who have been prosecuted for illegal l y dumping r ubbish. In 2017- 18, the council brought 37 successful prosecutions – half of the 75 prosecutions brought by all councils across Wales.
Defra said: ‘Councils are using powers to hand out on-the-spot fines to fly- tippers to good effect, and we have made it easier for vehicles suspected of being used for fly-tipping to be stopped, searched and seized.
‘We also recently introduced new fixed-penalty notices for householders who pass their waste to a fly-tipper, as we continue to crack down on those who blight our landscapes.’