Man get suspended term over 20,000 tonnes of illegally-buried waste

A Co Fermanagh man who saved nearly £2m by illegally burying almost 20,000 tonnes of waste on his land has been freed with a suspended 12-month prison term.
The justice systemThe justice system
The justice system

Judge Paul Ramsey QC told 51-year-old Stephen Harron that he was suspending the sentence for two years in light of all the circumstances – in particular the removal at his own cost of some of the material, which was accepted was unusual in such cases.

Sitting in Dungannon courthouse, Judge Ramsey added it was also accepted Harron was now a “man of straw” (as described by his own barrister), and was remorseful and ashamed of having to appear in court.

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Harron pleaded guilty to four charges: one of unlawfully depositing waste, and three of keeping controlled waste on two parcels of land at his Arney Road home in Arney Skea outside Enniskillen, on differing dates between January 2008 and May 2015.

Previously prosecutor Samuel Magee told Omagh Crown Court that an estimated 19,721 tonnes of waste was found on Harron’s land, with all but 570 tonnes of it buried.

Mr Magee further revealed that it was estimated it would have cost £1,835,214 to legitimately dispose of the waste, which was both domestic and commercial, but made up of non-hazardous materials.

The prosecution lawyer said that Harron had been a registered waste carrier up until December 2005, operating two companies.

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In March 2013, officers from the Northern Ireland Environmental Agency first visited Harron’s land and dug eight test pits after finding a number of “mounds of plastic waste”.

He claimed had been left by “two men from Sligo”, who had rented the site and whose company had since gone bust.

Mr Magee said waste was found in all but one pit, consisting of plastics, food packaging, carpet fragments, wood, glass, metal, wires, insulation foam and a number of baton round ammunition castings.

Although newspapers recovered dated back to 1994 – an indication of the age of the site – this was prior to the introduction of waste management legislation.

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Another pit was dug at the other side of Harron’s home, and similar types of waste were recovered immediately under the surface.

He told NIEA officials he had infilled a small area behind a stone cottage in order to create a hard standing area.

Over a year later in December 2014 NIEA officers again visited the site and saw 16 builder bags of machine-extracted peat together with large piles of plastic waste.

Mr Magee said the following May officers returned to Arney and found “the site continued to contain a significant amount of historical waste consisting of plastics, piping, wiring, tyres, electrical equipment and other waste”.

They also noted an area of burning.

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“The whole area was described as being ‘strewn with mixed waste’.

“Mr Harron was present on the site and informed NIEA officers that he was in the process of removing the waste,” added the lawyer.

However in Harron’s favour the waste above ground, said Mr Magee, “has been removed at his expenses... a somewhat unusual step”, and that he had made “significant admissions about the ownership of the site”.

Defence lawyer Ian Turkington said that until 2005 Harron had been licensed to waste dealer until a “rather sad set of affairs” resulted from a fall from a lorry, in which he broke a number of bones in his back.

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His once-thriving businesses, which had been going “from strength to strength”, began to decline.

“This is a man who bitterly regrets his involvement in these offences... a man never before the court until this,” said Mr Turkington, who added later that the “stigma of having to appear in court weighs heavily with him”.

The lawyer, while also describing Harron as “a man of straw who has hit financial rock bottom” with liabilities out-weighing any possible assets, said despite this he had “got money somehow” and had spent the last “18 months trying to clear the land”.

Mr Turkington said he had covered the site in stone so when examined, “it wasn’t a blight upon the countryside”, and unlike many such cases, Harron’s was in “a different category” in that he had removed “a lot of this material at his own expense”.

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The defence lawyer added that another indication of Harron’s concern for the environment was his inclusion of a water-sampling station on-site. Water samples taken for testing, have to date proved negative, said Mr Turkington.

Although freed today, Harron has another date with the courts, when it will be decided how much (if anything) he must pay-up by way of confiscation.