Waste criminal given three months to repay £2.1m

Chris Tindall
January 12, 2021

One of the largest ever confiscation orders obtained by the Environment Agency (EA) has been imposed on a convicted waste crime offender, who ran an illegal waste haulage business.

John Bruce has been given three months to pay £2.1m following a confiscation case at Worcester Crown Court. Judge Nicholas Cole branded 48-year-old Bruce a “career criminal” and said that he would face seven years in jail if he did not pay the money. Bruce received a 26-month jail sentence in May 2018 for operating an illegal waste site at a site near Pershore in Worcestershire. He was initially prosecuted for six offences where waste totaling 25,000 cubic metres was either dumped, buried or burned at the site.

The court heard that the defendant had grown his business and he had invested in various properties, land and cars. Bruce also owned a large selection of expensive items of heavy plant, which he hired, bought and resold. Additionally, Judge Cole ruled that a trust he had set up was a sham and that the money held in a bank account operated by the trust formed part of his criminal benefit.

An EA spokesman said the case was the second largest confiscation order it had obtained nationally: “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,” the spokesman added.

About the Author

Chris Tindall

Chris Tindall started writing for the haulage and logistics industry in 2002 and quickly realised there was enough going on to keep him busy for a very long time. He’s covered a broad range of significant issues, including GPS jamming by criminals, platooning, Brexit and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the lack of safe and secure lorry parks and he helped secure the release of a lorry driver in a Polish jail due to misuse of the European Arrest Warrant.

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