Sentencing Updates for January 2026

The defendant construction companies repeatedly polluted a brook during a housing development. This was due to a lack of effective controls to stop muddy water running off their sites and entering the nearby brook.

The defendant chemical manufacturing company pleaded guilty to breaching its environmental permit during six days of continuous flaring at its site. The flaring caused significant disruption to the local community, with SEPA receiving more than 900 complaints, the highest number ever for a single environmental event in Scotland. Residents described the noise as “like a jet engine” or a “blowtorch”, which left them unable to sleep. People were reluctant to go outside due to the noise and many referenced anxiety and the fear that something more serious, like an explosion, could happen. 

SEPA’s investigation found that: 

• Smoke from the elevated flare stack exceeded legal limits, with emissions darker than Ringlemann Shade 2 for 110 minutes - more than seven times the 15 minutes permitted.
• Significant noise pollution was caused, based on monitoring in the community and statements from residents.
• The defendant had processes and contingency plans that should have prevented the incident, but they were not followed to a high enough standard.
• Poor maintenance scheduling, a lack of understanding of the site’s steam balance, and failure to update risk analyses left the plant vulnerable, resulting in the shutdown and prolonged flaring.

£40,000`

The Environment Agency started monitoring sites at an industrial site due to complaints about dust, odour and noise. When officers attended land adjacent to the defendant company’s land, they discovered that a large amount of waste material was on the land. The waste was a type of ash which is commonly used as an aggregate in construction. Officials from the defendant company said that waste on the land had been placed there with the landowner’s permission and for the landowner’s use. However, the defendant later accepted it had made mistakes in dealing with waste and that it had breached its permit by placing the waste on the land. 

Charges: 

The defendant did fail to comply with condition 2.2.1 of an Environmental Permit by failing to ensure the permitted activities did not extend the site. Contrary to Regulations 12(1)(a) and Regulation 38(2) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

£20,600

Pay a local farmer £5,000 compensation for polluting his fields.

The defendant care home repeatedly ignored pollution and EA warnings. Repeated non-compliance with permit and inadequate infrastructure resulted in avoidable pollution of nearby farmland. A permit for a groundwater discharge activity had been issued to the defendant, which was later found to be non-compliant following a routine inspection. Despite numerous communications to bring the discharge back into compliance. 

The defendant was charged with the following offences:

It did cause a water discharge activity, otherwise than under or in accordance with an environmental permit, namely the discharge of poisonous, noxious or polluting matter, namely septic tank effluent, from an underground tank on land, into the ground. Contrary to Regulations 12(1)(b) and Regulation 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016. 

It failed to comply with the requirements of a notice requiring information, under Regulation 61(1) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016, requiring the results of a survey or inspection of the sewerage system. Contrary to regulation 38(4) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.

£2.48 million

A sort line operative at the defendant waste management company was run over by a reversing skip wagon. While making his way to the site office across the weighbridge, he was struck from behind by the wagon. The impact caused him to fall, and he died from crush injuries from the rear wheels.

The defendant failed to effectively review and monitor the control measures in place to protect pedestrians and keep them separate from vehicle movements. CCTV footage from the week before the incident showed that it was common practice for people on site to bypass segregated pedestrian routes, with some seen climbing over barriers that were intended to keep them safe. 

The defendant pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

A resident at the defendant care home company choked on a piece of food while consuming her evening meal alone in her room. The 96-year-old was on a specialist diet of soft, moist and bite-sized food and her care plan stated she should be closely supervised when eating and drinking. However, one afternoon, the unit in which she was accommodated was staffed by two agency carers who had responsibility for 12 residents. The lady was served a meal of macaroni and chips while sitting up in bed. Her carer left to get a drink to accompany her meal but was then forced to deal with immediate issues with two other residents which required her to call for assistance from another unit. As a result of this disruption the resident was left on her own for up to 20 minutes. When the carer returned to her room with the drink the alarm was raised and other staff came to assist. A paramedic arrived shortly afterwards and pronounced her dead. 

The defendant pleaded guilty to failings under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

A large number of the defendant social housing provider’s employees were exposed to vibration in their day to day work. These included bricklayers, joiners, electricians, plasterers, caretakers and others – while their work was varied, all included extensive use of power tools, ranging from drills and impact drivers to vibrating plates and road breakers, over an extended period of time. The defendant had not properly assessed or controlled worker’s exposure to vibration. It had not undertaken a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks posed by vibration. Control measures, such as removing the need to use vibrating tools, using lower vibration alternatives, or limiting exposure times, had not been properly implemented. Tool maintenance and health surveillance arrangements were inadequate, and employees had not received sufficient training on the risks that they faced. 

The defendant pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

An employee of the defendant steel structures manufacturer became entangled in a horizontal borer while carrying out cleaning operations. He sustained significant injuries to his legs and ankles, multiple broken ribs, and a collapsed lung on the left-hand side, requiring skin grafts as well as the partial amputation of two toes. 

The defendant failed to ensure appropriate guarding was in place on the machine, and that no safe system of work existed for its operation. Furthermore, a lack of effective auditing of daily check sheets meant a removed trip probe went unnoticed. The defendant pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

A man was injured while assisting with a work boat being lifted by a telehandler operated by the defendant marina’s staff. As the boat was being raised, the man’s hand was crushed by the telehandler forks which resulted in the fourth finger on his right hand being amputated. 

The defendant had failed to implement suitable measures to control the risks involved in lifting operations and that staff had not received appropriate training for such tasks. It pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

20 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years. 

A requirement to complete 15 days of Rehabilitation Activity. 

200 hours unpaid work.

The defendant contracted with homeowners to undertake various electrical, plumbing and building work to a value of around £14,000. He provided written quotations which bore the NICEIC (National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contractors) approved contractor logo. Work on all three properties commenced but was never completed. An expert found the work extremely shoddy and potentially dangerous. 

Trading Standards officers found Mr Phillips held no electrical qualification and was not a registered or approved NICEIC contractor. He pleaded guilty to six offences under the Fraud Act 2006.

Five-year prison sentence

The defendant ‘builder’ pleaded guilty to five offences which predominantly centred around charging deposits for building work that was never undertaken. Complaints alleged trading practices of taking deposits, often for more than half the total cost of the job. Once the money had been received, the work was rarely progressed. Customers had been scammed out of money, large deposits were paid but work did not commence. If work commenced it was not completed. Work done was sometimes of poor quality and had to be repaired by other tradesmen at a later date, which added further to the cost. In some instances, the scale of the work was significantly increased at the suggestion of the defendant beyond the initial request of customers which increased costs. The defendant failed to provide cancellation rights or contracts and failed to obtain Building Regulation permits as required by law while taking payments for such services.

The defendants were convicted of fraudulent trading relating to a complex wine fraud. £6million had been invested by 41 victims from across the UK with over half of that amount lost. Over £37m passed through the company accounts of the defendants’ business during the 10 years they were trading. The defendants conned hundreds of consumers out of money and life savings by convincing them to invest in fine Bordeaux wine on the back of a lie that the company didn’t make any money until they sold the wine at a profit for the customer. In fact, they marked the initial price up so high, sometimes over 400%, that for many investors, it would never increase in value over that price and some customers lost hundreds of thousands of pounds as a result. While the majority of the wine did exist and was kept in bonded warehouses, a number of victims have no wine at all despite paying thousands of pounds. 

Both three years’ imprisonment, reduced to 30 months and two weeks each to reflect their guilty pleas.