AN OVERTON man has been fined £6,000 for dumping animal waste in Heysham during the Foot and Mouth crisis.

Stephen Hancock, of Lancaster Road in the village pleaded guilty to depositing controlled waste on land without a waste management licence.

He was also ordered to pay £1,666.23 in costs to the Environment Agency, which brought the prosecution.

Finola Eyers, prosecuting, told the court that an Environment Agency protection officer was asked to investigate a smell coming from waste matter which had been dumped from a trailer parked on land at Bay Close, at the Port of Heysham Industrial Park.

The officers suspected that the waste material included crushed bone, an animal waste by-product.

Investigations revealed that Hancock had been contracted by Fats and Proteins (UK) Ltd to clean three trailers belonging to Ulster Farm By-Products Ltd.

The agency says that Fats and Proteins (UK), owners of Lancaster's Nightingale Hall Farm, are not implicated in this case.

The trailers contained meat bone meal and had been sent from Northern Ireland to be land filled in Burnley.

When the waste was analysed it appeared to contain meat fibres, tissues and bone fragments.

The waste had a decomposed odour and bacterial slime.

Ms Eyers told the court that, at the time of the offences, the nation was in the grip of Foot and Mouth disease and it was unacceptable that Mr Hancock carried out this activity on land on an industrial estate.

Hancock had, she added, been negligent in failing to assess the contents of the trailers and dispose of the waste matter properly.