Three men have escaped with £100 fines despite fly-tipping an “extensive mound” of unwanted bar fittings in a car park in Bradford.

Jason Bell, Andrew Taylor and Simon Greenwood pleaded guilty before the city’s magistrates yesterday to failing to legitimately dispose of waste after stripping the interior of a pub in Leeds.

The court heard Taylor, 51, of Larch Hill, Odsal, was approached by the manager of The Sports Bar in The Headrow to strip out the bar’s fittings as part of a refurbishment in August last year.

At the 30-minute hearing, Harjit Ryatt, prosecuting for Bradford Council, said Taylor contacted two friends to dispose of the materials when he found it was going to be difficult to put a skip outside the Leeds bar.

Bell, 42, of Ruffield Side, Wyke, and Greenwood, 36, of Bottomley Street, Buttershaw, who were not registered to carry waste, turned up in a van. Mr Ryatt said: “He agreed that they could take the waste and dispose of it but he did not carry out any checks to verify that they could dispose of it properly.”

He said the two men were paid £160 to get rid of a pile of wood, plastic sofas, carpets and posters but instead of taking it to a waste site, they dumped the items in a car park in the street in Wyke where Bell lived.

The following morning, Council officers were called to the mess by residents and a clean-up operation was carried out.

When interviewed, Bell and Greenwood said they had dumped the waste on a Sunday evening because the managed waste sites were closed and that they had intended to pick it up the next day to dispose of it properly.

None of the men had legal representation in court and when they were asked by magistrates to explain their conduct, Bell said: “We were going to pick it up the next day. I live on this street so I wasn’t going to dump a load of waste in this car park. It’s overgrown. I knew it wasn’t going to be obstructing anyone.”

Greenwood, who works as a bricklayer, said they did not leave the rubbish in his van because he needed to use it for work the next morning and they had already filled Bell’s garage with the rest of the items.

Taylor said: “We’re really sorry for all the time we’ve wasted and all the expenses and it won’t happen again.”

Mr Ryatt applied to the court for total costs of £775. Imposing the £100 fines, magistrates stressed they had taken the defendants’ guilty pleas into account. In addition they ordered the three men to each pay £135 towards prosecution costs and a £15 victim surcharge.

After the hearing, Councillor Ghazanfer Khaliq, Bradford Council’s executive member for environment and sustainability, said: “This case shows that the Council will do its best to track down and prosecute people who carry waste without a licence and dump rubbish in the district.

“Fly-tipping is a blight on the environment, an unnecessary drain on precious Council resources and a kick in the teeth for legitimate waste businesses which go to the expense and trouble of complying with the law.

“We are glad that the courts support Bradford Council by treating illegal waste dumping seriously.”

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