Two Northampton men have been fined a total of more than £300,000 for their involvement in running an illegal waste tyre site in Daventry. Nimesh Patel, 52, and Andrew Eyre, 55, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on March 28th for a Proceeds of Crime judgment.
In September 2024, Eyre, a company director, received an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, along with 30 days of rehabilitation activities. Patel, the operations manager, was sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and 80 hours of unpaid work.
Now, Patel has been ordered to pay £175,013.93 plus a £122 surcharge, while Eyre received an order for £138,368.52 plus a £140 surcharge, totalling £313,382.45.
Peter Stark, enforcement leader for the Environment Agency, stated, “The case shows that we’re not just content to prosecute those who run illegal waste sites, we’ll also come after them to get back the profits they made from their illegal activities and to recoup taxpayers’ money spent on pursuing them. Waste crime can have a serious environmental impact which puts communities at risk and undermines legitimate business. We support legitimate businesses and we are proactively supporting them by disrupting and stopping the criminal element backed up by the threat of tough enforcement as in this case.”
Patel and Eyre have been given three months to pay their fines or face imprisonment of three and two years respectively. Eyre was also fined £250 for breaching a previous suspended sentence from January 2020.
The Daventry site operated without the required environmental permit, and tyres were stored unsafely, posing a significant fire and pollution risk, according to the Environment Agency. Inspections over a year from February 2020 revealed that the 40-tonne weekly limit for waste tyre storage or treatment was exceeded in 52 out of 59 weeks analysed.
The investigation followed a 2020 court case where Synergy Tyres (Midland) Ltd was fined for similar offences, and Eyre received a suspended sentence. John Mullen, a former joint director with Eyre, received a nominal order of £1 at the recent hearing.
Source: Northampton Chronicle
