A company which transports animal by-products has been ordered to pay more than £40,000 by a judge after allowing offal to spill or leak from its vehicles on to roads in the district.

Prosecutor Peter Hampton yesterday gave Bradford Crown Court details of the charges against Alba Transport, which is a subsidiary of Swalesmoor-based waste management firm The Leo Group.

On September 10, 2009, in Harecroft near Wilsden a lorry was seen by a resident spilling some of its load, which was later found to be poultry offal, Mr Hampton said.

On September 29, 2009, a man at work in South Street, Keighley, saw red and white material spill from what was described as a skip wagon, near the Shimla Spice restaurant. He described a “strong smell of decomposition”, the prosecutor told the court.

Alba Transport admitted charges relating to both incidents and asked the judge to take six other offences into account, committed between September 24, 2010, and July 1, 2011.

On one occasion chicken intestines were described as being a foot deep in places, and on another a grey-brown pile of intestines was seen on a pavement near a school.

After a spillage on July 1, the prosecutor said, a motorcyclist skidded on the offal and residents said the smell lingered for a weekend.

He told the court an alleged spillage on September 9 this year was under investigation and there were photographs which “seemed to implicate” the company.

Judge Scott Wolstenholme said: “These offences are very serious. They cause considerable upset to members of the public concerned with the disgusting sight and smell of animal blood and intestines strewn across the road.”

He said the spillages were potentially hazardous and the clean-up operations were disruptive to traffic.

The company was fined £32,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £9,528.45, and two £15 victim surcharges.

Mitigating, Nicholas De La Poer said the company had been using industry standard vehicles but was nevertheless in the process of replacing its fleet with modified lorries which it had designed and developed to tackle the problem.

It had also cleaned up the spillages on most of the occasions and taken disciplinary action against drivers involved in some of the incidents, he said.

Residents had been logging incidents of spillages and speaking outside court after the hearing Bev Barker, of Queensbury-based Swalesmoor Action Group, said she was “disappointed” with the fine, which she described as a “pittance”.

She said: “We expected a fine in the region of £80,000 and felt the company should easily be able to afford this. This fine makes us feel it gives no incentive to the company to improve its standards.”

After the hearing, a spokesman for Alba Transport said: “For us one spillage is one too many. We regret these accidents that have happened in the Bradford district and apologise for them. None of these were intentional and the waste material was not diseased, contaminated or hazardous, nor does it pose a risk to health.”