After burning waste and burying materials including asbestos, one of the owners of a skip hire firm and scrap yard in North Devon has been sentenced to 9 months in prison. The Environment Agency felt it was necessary to bring the case forward.
At Exeter Crown Court, Petra Bond was sentenced after illegally disposing of waste at a site in Bideford. Julian Goddard, Bonds son and business partner, was ordered to pay an amount of £7,750 in fines and costs. The mother and son team, aged 66 and 40 respectively, owners of Auto Disposals and Bideford Skip Hire, were convicted of a list of serious waste offences following a trial in Exeter.
During the trial, the jury was told how a series of fires had occurred at the premises that led to a large, asbestos-clad shed being damaged. The individual who was in charge of the site at the time, one Petra Bond, ordered one of the staff to remove the asbestos from the building. The employee put the asbestos in a number of different skips, only one of which was taken by a waste disposal company, the legitimate method of removal. A similar incident involved skips being hired for a diesel spill, which were later found to be leaking diesel over another property’s car park.
After the last of the blazes, Bond instructed the individual to take the asbestos to a neighbouring property known as Godleigh Cottage, where he was to dig a hole and cover the waste as it was buried. The damaged shed was estimated to contain around 15 tonnes of bonded asbestos. Petra Bond could later only account for a mere 1.8 tonnes.
The court heard that over a period of a few years, an estimate 2000-3000 tonnes of waste had been illegally hidden in and around the area.
Bond was given a custodial sentence and Goddard ordered to pay costs after being found guilty of a total of 8 offences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 & Environmental Permitting Regulations 2007.