A WASTE transportation company has been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £12,600 after hazardous offal was spilled on to a busy Bradford road.

J G Pears (Newark) Ltd, was sentenced at Bradford Crown Court yesterday after admitting responsibility for the hazardous chicken waste slopping over its trailer.

The incident happened on the A650 Wakefield Road on September 4 last year.

The company pleaded guilty at Bradford and Keighley Magistrates Court to failing to comply with an animal by-product regulation and failing to clearly identify the category of the by-product during transportation. The case was sent to the crown court for sentence.

Imran Khan, prosecuting for Bradford Council, said at an earlier hearing that the incident was caused when the wagon driver braked sharply at traffic lights while doing 42mph in a 40 zone.

The spillage, near the Dudley Hill Roundabout, caused long tailbacks across lunchtime.

Mr Khan said J G Pears, based at Penistone, South Yorkshire, was transporting the waste to P Waddingtons and Co in Bradford.

An environmental health officer called to the scene described the stench as "overpowering".

Two lanes of the three-lane carriageway were closed for two hours and the road had to be disinfected and then specially cleansed.

In mitigation, Tahir Khan QC, barrister for the company, said it had never previously been prosecuted for a by-product spillage.

The lorry and trailer were fit for purpose but the driver was going too fast and braked sharply.

The company pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and was a very professionally-run business.

Judge Mark Savill ordered it to pay fines of £7,600, with £5,000 costs, to be paid in full in 28 days.

He said the lorry driver made the "relatively commonplace error" of having to brake harshly when the lights turned to red while he was going downhill. He was just over the speed limit and "should have been erring on the side of caution."

"There was no direct risk to health from this limited spillage but two lanes of the road were closed for two hours, causing significant disruption to traffic," the judge said.

Since the incident, the firm's vehicles had been fitted with bigger splash plates but the wagon was not defective in any way.

"It was the unsafe manner of the driving that illustrates the culpability in this case," Judge Savill said.

"This was a well run company in a heavily regulated industry."

Firms that used it spoke of it in glowing terms and its bosses had shown genuine remorse.