A MAN who illegally collected and dumped waste on multiple occasions in breach of a court order has been jailed.
South Gloucestershire Council said Tom Pleass, of Cherington in Yate, was on of the most “prolific offenders” after repeatedly finding him using a lorry to collect scrap and rubbish despite being clearly told he was banned.
Pleass, aged 31, was imprisoned for 54 weeks and disqualified from driving for 11 months in July after pleading guilty to charges of fly-tipping, breaching a CBO previously handed to him for waste offences, not having a scrap metal licence or waste transfer notes and failing to respond to an interview request.
Two years ago Pleass was given a suspended sentence after collecting and dumping waste “a minimum of 200 times” during the pandemic, dumping some at the roadside and setting much of it on fire at a farm in Old Sodbury.
Back in trouble ‘as soon as he left court’
At his latest appearance at Bristol Crown Court, a judge was told he had started reoffending “as soon as he left court” following the 2023 suspended sentence, despite also being made subject to a criminal behaviour order banning him from collecting waste.
Council environmental enforcement officers saw his lorry piled with waste and parked near his home within weeks and he was repeatedly stopped by police and council officers driving with a load.
Residents also reported that he was regularly parking his lorry near his home with waste on it. He was also found repeatedly visiting a scrap dealer in Frampton Cotterell with a loaded truck and captured on Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras.
Pleass was also paid to remove waste from a Bristol address in April last year that was later found fly-tipped in New Tyning Lane, Little Sodbury (pictured above).
‘Prolific offender’
Cabinet councillor for environmental enforcement Sean Rhodes said: “This is a great result for the council against one of our area’s most prolific offenders.
“We will not tolerate illegal waste activity in South Gloucestershire and we want to send the clear message that anyone found flouting the law will be brought before the courts.”