Pleading guilty to all charges, Robert Bulcock, director of fridge storage firm Britannia Import Export and company secretary David Yeomans also saw their company – Britannia Import Export – receiving a fine of just 100 for breaking its waste management licence conditions.
 Britannia pleaded guilty to charges of failing to ensure adequate security at its fridge storage site at Trafford Park, which suffered a major fire in late 2003 (pictured above) |
A hearing at Manchester Crown Court on Wednesday was unable to impose a heavier sentence on the company because of their apparent financial inadequacies, an Agency spokesperson explained.
Britannia Import Export left hundreds of thousands of fridges at sites in Manchester and Oldham as it went into liquidation in 2004. These fridges have now been removed following a four-month clean-up operation led by the Environment Agency and new landowners.
Fires
The company went into liquidation after losing its contract to take fridges from Manchester city council in January 2004, a result of suspicions over Britannia's working practice following a spate of eight major fridge fires at four of the company's sites (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the charges heard at Manchester's Crown Court last week related only to Britannia failing to ensure adequate security at the company’s fridge storage site at Twining Road, Trafford Park, relating to a fire at the site the company said was caused by vandals.
”We take environmental crime very seriously, and are disappointed in the sentences imposed on the defendants. “
– Robert Runcie, Environment Agency
Disappointed
Speaking after the hearing, Environment Agency Regional Director Robert Runcie said: “We take environmental crime very seriously, and are disappointed in the sentences imposed on the defendants. Despite advice and enforcement action from the Environment Agency, they showed a blatant disregard for the law and the potential impact on the environment and the public was considerable.
“Fortunately, as a result of the combined efforts of a number of organisations, the fridges have been cleared from all the Greater Manchester sites and the risk to the environment has been removed.”
End of road
The Agency told letsrecycle.com today it was the end of the road in terms of the action it could take against Britannia Import Export, stating that any further prosecution “would most likely see the same kind of result” because of Mr Bulcock and his company's financial state.
Mr Bulcock is certainly no stranger to court action, having been personally fined 15,000 in late 2003 – with his company fined 52,000 – for failing to demonstrate where fridges in his possession were going with suitable waste transfer notes. The company's fine was later lowered to just 35,000 as a result of a court mix-up (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Agency at the time estimated that Britannia had received about 87,000 for storing the 300,000 fridges in question.
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