A WICKFORD man has been jailed for a year and told to pay nearly £150,000 after fly-tipping on “a commercial scale”.

Glenn Harper, 33, of Arterial Road, Wickford, was one of three gang members to be convicted of dumping hundreds of tonnes of waste across Barking, Havering, Hertfordshire and Essex between 2012 and 2014.

He has been jailed for 12 months and must pay back £146,755 within three months or face another two years in prison, after admitting four counts of breaching environmental law.

Investigators from the Environment Agency first discovered Harper, along with William Jones, 39, and Sean Collard, 53, had broken into a yard in Choats Road in Barking in October 2012.

CCTV showed the men dumping a mix of household waste, wood and textiles from a lorry with false number plates. There was so much waste on board, it was spilling out onto the ground.

Once more captured on CCTV, the gang struck the following month at a printing works at Thurrock.

Over three nights, the men used an articulated lorry to tip 640 tonnes of aggregate – stones, rubble, earth, clay and chalk – at the site in Oliver Road, costing the landowners more than £120,000 to clear.

At New Year 2013, Jones rented a yard from Network Rail a stone’s throw from the M25, at Waltham Cross in Hertfordshire.

Environment Agency officers later found the site in Bryanstone Road was filled with rotting waste. This highly organised criminality saw the waste wrapped in bales of black plastic.

Nine months later they struck again in Barking. In October 2013, agency investigators pursued a lorry driven by Collard between two addresses either side of the A13. He was seen dumping more aggregate at a building site in Abbey Road, soon joined by Jones and Harper in a Citroen van.

All three men were arrested by Essex Police back on the A13, at the Environment Agency’s request. Collard told police he was just test-driving the lorry.

Finally, in Rainham in May 2014, all three men were identified by Environment Agency officers at the facility, using a lorry to move concrete blocks designed to prevent access.

At Snaresbrook Crown court on May 22, Judge Patricia Lees said the trio’s criminal behaviour was motivated by money, with a financial cost to landowners, residents and the public purse, as well as causing environmental damage.

Jones, of Jack Clow Road, Stratford, received 13 months in prison and must pay £80,000 in proceeds of crime inside three months or face an 18 month sentence extension for four counts of breaking environmental law.

Collard, of New Road, Rainham, was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, 200 hours of unpaid work and a curfew between 7.30pm and 5.30am, in force for three months, for three counts of the same charge. The Environment Agency was awarded costs against Collard of £10,000.

Emma Viner, area enforcement manager for the Environment Agency, said: “Jones, Harper and Collard had no concern for the cost to the landowners or taxpayers, less still, the harm dumping hundreds of tonnes of waste would have on the environment.

“This highly-organised operation broke the law on a commercial scale, but that same law caught up with them in the end.

“The prison sentences laid down in court by the judge show crime does not pay, also proven by more than £200,000 recovered from the men in a proceeds of crime order or court costs.”