A JUDGE has given a skip boss who flouted waste laws three months to clean up his act and warned others tempted to do the same: "You could go to jail."

Recorder Alistair Webster, QC, slammed illegal fly tippers for the "awful mess" they were making of the countryside and polluting water - and told an appeal hearing he considered it almost as serious as arson.

The judge, sitting with two magistrates, said he wanted to give a public message to local landowners. He said if they were illegally tipping, particularly after warnings from environment chiefs, serious consideration would be given to sending them to custody.

Recorder Webster hit out after Christopher Robinson, 35, had appealed against a sentence of more than £10,000 in fines and costs, imposed by Reedley magistrates after he admitted seven offences involving the unlawful depositing and keeping of controlled waste. He told Robinson, who had carried on dumping after warnings from the Environment Agency, it was unsurprising the lower court took a serious view of his behaviour.

The judge, who had been told Robinson now had an income of £30 a week, said what he had done came "very close" to a prison sentence. He added that Robinson was clearly unable to pay the fine and the court took the view that the best result would be to get the land tidied.

The bench gave Robinson, of Brown House Farm, Gisburn Old Road, Blacko, three months to do it and deferred sentence until September 17. He told Robinson if the site had been cleared and there had been no further tipping, the court would look rather more sympathetically at his case, but if it hadn't, he wouldn't get the slightest scrap of sympathy. John Bennett, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, had told the court Robinson, trading as Robinson Skip Hire, committed the offences between November 1997 and April 1998 on land off Gisburn Old Road, Blacko. He was using his land to dispose of waste, avoiding the charges of depositing it at a licensed landfill site. He was effectively creating a waste disposal site, reducing the volume by burning it. The likely cost of disposing rubblish currently on Robinson's land was about £3,500. He was fined £8,750 bythe magistrates.

Robert Crawford, for the appellant, said Robinson had no previous convictions. He lived with his mother working on the farm for his keep, had no money whatsoever and his small scale business was now coming to a halt. He had decided to liquidate it and had already sold some skips. Robinson shouldn't have done what he did and had been "flying by the seat of his pants" regarding waste regulations.

Robinson thought he could dispose of the material left on his land for £500-£600, and intended to do so. £10,000 was way beyond his means.

The appellant told the hearing he wanted to "shift" the waste and if the weather was good, he could do it in six weeks to two months. At first he didn't realise the seriousness of what he had done.

Robinson, who said he was now taking tamazepam prescribed by his doctor, said he only had two customers left and earned £30 a week.

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