A farmer has been jailed after he and his “pig-headed” father were caught repeatedly burning waste, including fridges, at their farm illegally.
Father and son David and Nicholas Channer were convicted after they continually stored and set fire to rubbish at Mop End Farm, near Amersham, putting the environment at risk.
The Environment Agency said despite the pair being sent “countless” letters and having a number of visits from environmental crime investigators between 2017 and 2019, they accumulated everything from wood and metal, to waste from two agricultural concerns.
They then set fire to the rubbish as a cheaper alternative to authorised disposal, with the blazes leaving “mounds of smouldering ash”.
The pair said they burned everything, including fridges that had been fly-tipped, with smoke with a chemical smell causing an Environment Agency officer’s eyes to sting.
Nicholas managed Chiltern Tree Care, based at the farm, which created “significant” amounts of waste that should have been disposed of legally, the Environment Agency said.
Crime officers visited Mop End Farm in January, with the EA saying open land was used to “hoard” everything from white goods to soil, bricks and wood the pair would later torch.
Nicholas confessed to holding 100 tons of scrap metal there he got from online customers or by driving around looking for it.
High Wycombe Magistrates’ Court was shown a video and photographs of large piles of rubbish on fire at the farm, including painted and treated wood, green waste, chipboard and plastic.
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Later, accompanied by county council enforcement officers, investigators found burning cardboard and PVC. They also saw a mountain of ash, with the charred remains of treated and untreated wood and other debris.
Officers had also discovered two more fires at Mop End Farm in June 2017, between ten and 16 metres long and several metres wide – and smoking ash, metal, rubble and wood and even manure burning unattended.
David admitted burning waste on the land, which he owns, collected from elsewhere, leading district judge (DJ) Malcolm Dodds to say the 67-year-old was “pig-headed” for not responding to “plentiful warnings” from the Environment Agency.
DJ Dodds added David took no steps to limit the effect of his son’s tree maintenance firm as the illegal rubbish built up.
When questioned, the Channers said they either had not seen letters from crime officers, or were unaware that exemptions from permits for managing the waste had expired.
Nicholas was sent to prison for 13 months, including five months for breaching an unrelated suspended sentence.
The 47-year-old was already subject to a suspended prison sentence for unrelated matters at the time of these offences.
As a result, Nicholas was jailed by Aylesbury Crown Court for five months, on top of the eight months for waste crime.
David Channer received a six-month jail term, suspended for two years.
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The agency had been alerted to what the men were doing by Buckinghamshire County Council and the pair were prosecuted eight years ago for committing similar offences.
While the areas where the fires took place have been partially cleared, David Channer, as landowner, has until December this year to remove the remaining contaminated ash.
David and Nicholas Channer, both of Mop End Farm, Mop End, each pleaded guilty to eight counts under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
The offences were that, between or before January 2017 to June 2019, they allowed waste to be stored and burned.
They were also prosecuted for not properly documenting moving waste between different sites.
As well as his suspended prison term, David was ordered by High Wycombe Magistrates’ Court to pay the Environment Agency’s full costs of £14,925, and a £115 victim surcharge.
In a separate hearing at Aylesbury Crown Court, in addition to his custodial sentence, Nicholas was fined £40,000, with full costs of £15,122.45, and a victim surcharge of £140.
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Charlotte Milton, a senior environmental crime officer for the Environment Agency, said: “David and Nicholas Channer have been rightly punished by the courts for riding roughshod over the law around managing waste safely and securely.
“The men had no system in place to limit the amount or type of waste held at Mop End Farm. Nor did they establish measures to protect the environment or human health.
“The law requires anyone dealing with waste to keep it safe, make sure it’s handled responsibly, and only given to businesses authorised to take it.
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