Farmer ordered to pay £250,000

Robert Nicholas Byard will sent to prison unless he can find the cash after he was ordered to make the payment in a Proceeds of Crime action brought by the Environment Agency.

Agency officers successfully prosecuted Byard in October 2008 and he was given a suspended sentence after admitting 20 waste offences at his farm on the outskirts of Chesterfield.

During that earlier hearing, Derby Crown Court heard court heard 64-year-old Byard's farm was in a prominent position on the hillside in an area which was popular with walkers.

Following complaints from residents, Environment Agency staff started surveillance in March 2007.

Environmental crime officers saw large quantities of mixed domestic and building waste being taken onto the farm in skips and a tipper truck, owned and operated by Byard.

The skips were unloaded and the waste was sorted and stored in farm buildings. Some waste, mainly wood, was burned in the open.

Byard was arrested in June 2007, when Environment Agency investigators and police executed a search warrant at the farm. They found evidence of landfilling on the farm and large quantities of mixed waste.

During his sentencing, Byard accepted he had been prosecuted by the Environment Agency and convicted at Chesterfield Magistrates' Court on two previous occasions.

In 1997 he was found guilty of four offences of depositing controlled waste on Hillside Farm in Wingerworth without a waste management licence and also pleaded guilty to seven similar offences in 2000.

The court heard there had been no long-term damage to the environment and that Byard was in poor health, with difficult family circumstances and had "not been living the high life".

The farmer gave no account of his activities but said he had been trying to make ends meet because of a reduction in his farming income.

The Proceeds of Crime Act (PoCA) is used in cases where an offender has benefited financially from their crimes. If Byard does not pay within six months he faces a prison sentence of two years and nine months.

Senior environmental crime officer with the Environment Agency Paul Salter said the organisation was pleased with the outcome of the legal process.

"The case demonstrates to people who think they can make significant amounts of money from breaking environmental law that they will be caught up with and dealt with," he said.

Confiscation orders can be used in any case where an offender has benefited financially from their criminality, and can include financial advantage gained over legitimate competitors, such as avoiding costs, fees and taxes.

The powers are now used extensively by agencies including Revenue and Customs, SOCA, the Department for Work and Pensions, Trading Standards, and Defra.

The Environment Agency said its first PoCA cases used external financial investigators from partner agencies but now internal financial investigators including forensic accountants, have been appointed.

Teams across the country are investigating cases worth up to 25m in total; Byard's case was the largest confiscation order secured by the Leeds-based regional asset recovery team who work for the agency's Yorkshire and North East region.

The Environment Agency was awarded its first confiscation order under POCA in 2007. These are usually used in cases involving people convicted of committing crimes in contravention of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Offenders can be granted up to 12 months to satisfy a confiscation order but may be ordered to pay more quickly at the discretion of a judge.