CHARGING a woman £40 to remove her household waste, a man has now been fined more than £4,000 after it was discovered dumped on Hack Pen Hill.

Ciaran Price appeared before magistrates in Swindon on Friday charged with causing the waste – which included a sofa, a mattress and a small quad-bike – to be dumped at Hack Pen Hill without a licence. Having previously denied the allegation, the 23 year old of Wood Street, Royal Wootton Bassett, changed his plea to guilty upon arriving at court for trial.

Magistrates heard that a street cleaner had come across the pile of rubbish on April 8, 2015 and reported the matter to Swindon Borough Council.

Prosecuting on behalf of the council, Anna Midgley said that upon investigation they found the name and address of a woman among the debris and contacted her to arrange an interview.

“She explained that she had had some rubbish she wanted to get rid of and placed an advert on Facebook that the defendant responded to,” she said. “He said he would get rid of it for £40 and would take it to the tip.

“On April 6 he attended her address in a large white van with two others to collect the rubbish.”

The court heard that when he was brought in for questioning he admitted taking the rubbish but claimed to be working for other people who he understood had a licence to dispose of the waste.

Miss Midgley explained that investigating the matter had cost a total of £2,952, which was made up of £816 investigation costs, legal costs of £1,536 and solicitor fees of £600. There was a further cost of £360 to clear the rubbish.

Defending him, Mark Glendenning said: “He accepts in full that he was the liaison and has done something to arrange the collection of this waste and has fronted that contact and collected the waste. He deals with a number of people, some with waste licences some he is not sure. Clearly these people do not have a waste licence.

“Mr Price accepts that he was effectively reckless in so far as he didn’t make specific enquiries as to what was going on.”

Sentencing him, chairman of the bench Alison Auvray said: “This is actually a really serious offence, causing an enormous amount of damage to society. Fly tipping in an area of outstanding natural beauty on the Ridgeway in an area regularly used by children and dog walkers is particularly poor in our opinion.”

He was fined £720, ordered to pay the prosecution costs of £2,952, compensation of £360 to Swindon Borough Council and a victim surcharge of £72.