Crime boss jailed for illegal Aldermaston waste site

Four-year prison term is a record for waste offences, says Environment Agency

AN ORGANISED crime boss has been jailed for four years for running a massive illegal waste site at Aldermaston.

Hugh O'Donnell was also convicted of laundering millions of pounds in profits.

The jail term is the longest prison sentence ever handed out for waste crime.

A three-year investigation by the Environment Agency (EA) ended in 2009, when environmental crime officers alongside police arrested O'Donnell and two accomplices.

The judge commended the EA for presenting an overwhelming case for conviction against a criminal operation that “was large scale and highly organised”.

With the assistance of Thames Valley Police, the Agency raided an illegal waste site in October 2008, which spread over land the size of five football pitches at Aldermaston, seizing an unlicensed handgun and ammunition, other weapons, stolen vehicles, plant equipment and more than £50,000 in cash.

O'Donnell, aged 64, of Reading, was subsequently imprisoned in 2009 for four and a half years for possession of the illegal firearm, which was recovered following an EA search.

Upon his release from prison yesterday (Thursday) O'Donnell was coincidentally sentenced in Isleworth Crown Court today to four years in prison for money-laundering and 22 months for waste offences to be served concurrently.

His accomplices Robert Evans, aged 59, and Peter Lavelle, aged 28, both of Reading, received two years and 18 months respectively for money-laundering, and 14 months and 12 month respectively for waste offences – all to be served concurrently.

Judge Edmunds QC said: “This was deliberate, calculated offending on an industrial scale .. for profit.

“You carried on in the teeth of attempts to stop you, and with the clear intention of making as much criminal profit as you could before you were stopped."

He added: “The attitude shown to the enforcement authorities was dismissive and obstructive.”

Among the aggravating features, he said, were: deliberate breach of the law, a direct motive of financial profit, numerous failures to respond to advice or a court injunction to persist.

Angus Innes, Environment Agency Principal Solicitor, said afterwards: “O'Donnell's illegal waste business netted millions of pounds in profit by taking skips or lorry loads of construction and demolition waste into the Aldermaston site to be dumped in an illegal landfill.

“This investigation has been one of the biggest and most complex ever undertaken by the Agency, using intelligence and forensic science to proactively target an organised criminal gang running an illegal waste site.”

He added: “Waste crime puts the environment and human health at risk and undermines legitimate waste businesses.

“This sentence sends out a message that waste crime is a serious offence and you can and will be sent to jail.”