Magistrate fined over pollution

A magistrate was fined pounds 9,000 when he appeared in court charged with polluting the environment. David Distin, chief magistrate of the East Berkshire Magistrates' Court Circuit, was also ordered to pay pounds 300 costs by magistrates at Basingstoke in Hampshire.

The court heard that Mr Distin's building company, HC Distin Ltd, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, had created the pollution when three temporary school classrooms were burnt. Berkshire County Council had granted a contract to the company to remove and dispose of the buildings from Emmbrook School in Wokingham. However, instead of taking them to a licensed waste disposal site, the structures, which contained wiring, insulation material and polystyrene, were burnt in a field beside the M4 in April this year.

In a separate prosecution brought by the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, HC Distin Ltd was fined pounds 4,500 with pounds 1,200 costs for breaching the Clean Air Act 1993.