£1.8m bill for farmer who ran illegal tip

400 tonnes found dumped in fields

A sick and elderly Stirlingshire farmer who allowed people to dump waste on his land is facing a £1.8 million bill from environment crime prosecutors, a court heard.

David Graham, 69, was being accused of everything short of starting the First World War, his solicitor said.

Graham, of Dunipace, pleaded guilty in October to running an illegal tip on farmland at Doghill, near Denny.

Inspectors from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) who checked the site between 2011 and 2013 found more than 400 tonnes of construction waste, household waste, biodegradable waste and commercial waste on the fields.

The rubbish dumped included red blaes colliery spoil, bricks, concrete, metal, tar, turf, road planings, tarmac, plastics, Perspex windows, green waste, a wooden pallet and a demolished garden

shed.

Graham, of Denovan Mains farm, admitted four charges under the 1990 Environmental Protection Act: keeping controlled waste without a licence, failing to secure the site to prevent fly-tipping, permitting fly-tipping and sorting and burying waste without a licence.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that Graham should have held a licence for waste disposal activities and to do so would have meant building and operating a proper landfill site at an estimated cost of £1.8 million.

Crown Office prosecutors are seeking to force him to pay that sum under the Proceeds of Crime Act on the basis that he benefited by that amount as a result of not building a proper site.

Graham’s solicitor Gordon Addison argued that Graham’s profits, if any, amounted to nowhere near £1.8 million.

The Proceeds of Crime Act was passed to allow prosecutors to recover assets from criminals such as drug dealers but it can also be used to pursue business owners who profit by dodging environmental legislation.

Mr Addison told the court: “The Crown are not actually blaming Mr Graham for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand but according to them everything else seems to be his fault.”

He said his client was a sick, elderly man, recently hospitalised, who appeared in the dock on crutches.

Sheriff Derek Livingstone continued the case until January 19 for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Sentence on Graham for the four charges was deferred to await the outcome of that.