A father and son duo have been sentenced after pleading guilty to the operation of an illegal waste site deemed 'particularly harmful' to nearby farmland.
Stephen Lack, 72, owns the Monkton Sidings site which he allowed his son, Andrew Lack, 38 to run as a waste site without an environmental permit.
An Environment Agency investigation concluded that waste was disposed of in a manner likely to cause pollution.
Drone footage revealed that skips of waste were being processed on the site in an unlawful manner, with waste stored on bare ground, risking contaminants polluting the soil and groundwater.
The agency said this was 'particularly harmful' to adjacent farmland, as well as Fineshade Woods, a sensitive Forestry Commission location just 250m away.
On 13 September 2024, Stephen Lack was sentenced at Northampton Crown Court to 34 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.
He was ordered to pay £2,400 towards the prosecution costs and has two years to clear the waste from the site.
His son, Andrew, was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months on the condition that he perform 250 hours of unpaid work.
Stephen has three previous convictions for similar offences at his Monkton Sidings site. He went to prison in 2021 for operating the waste site illegally, where waste was burned, buried and stockpiled.
During his imprisonment, Andrew took over operations, but Stephen retained ownership of the site and allowed his son to continue the business. After his release, he resumed his involvement on-site.
Sentencing Mr Lack, His Honour Judge Mayo said that his behaviour had been “deliberate” and that he had exercised “ownership and control over the site for a period of two years.”
He made an order requiring Mr Lack to clear the remaining unpermitted waste from the Monkton Sidings site.
He warned Mr Lack that if the order was breached, he would be brought back to court for enforcement action, which could lead to his return to prison.
Following the sentencing, Paul Salter, crime officer for the Environment Agency, said: “It’s our job to regulate waste activity to make sure it doesn’t put people or the environment at risk.
"These cases are a shocking example of two individuals who continued to be driven by profit blatantly ignoring their responsibilities.
"They put people and nature in harm’s way and attempted to undercut legitimate businesses.”
