Mr O’Kane pleaded guilty to two breaches of waste management legislation and was fined £2,000 on each charge. Henry Brothers (Magherafelt) Ltd pleaded guilty to one charge of failure in their Duty of Care and was fined £2,000.
On 23 March 2006 officers of the Environment and Heritage Service (EHS) (now the NI Environment Agency) visited the site at the Bracken Road, Omagh, where they discovered an area of birch bog filled to a depth of between two and five metres.
The officers returned on 26 June 2006 to find that the amount of waste had doubled to an estimated 11,000 tonnes of material on site. This tonnage would normally attract over £22,000 of Landfill Tax and cost over £50,000 to dispose of legally.
Waste on the site consisted mostly of construction and demolition waste with significant amounts of wood waste and plastics. Officers were able to use barcodes found in the waste to trace its point of origin to ‘The Barracks’ at Barrack Lane, Omagh.
Notes to Editors:
Charges were taken under the following Articles of The Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997:
Mr O’Kane pleaded guilty to one charge of Depositing waste under 4(1)a: depositing of controlled waste in or on land unless a waste management licence authorising the deposit is in force and the deposit in accordance with the licence; and
one charge of Keeping waste under 4(1)b; keeping controlled waste in or on land unless a waste management licence authorising the deposit is in force and the deposit in accordance with the licence.
Henry Brothers (Magherafelt) Ltd pleaded guilty to 1 charge of failure in their Duty of Care under 5(1) a: Failure to take all such measures applicable in that capacity as are reasonable in the circumstances to prevent any contravention by any other person of Article 4.
