€75,000 award to waste haulier

A ROAD HAULAGE company owner who sued environmental authorities over the detention of three lorries transporting waste from Dublin…

A ROAD HAULAGE company owner who sued environmental authorities over the detention of three lorries transporting waste from Dublin to Belfast has been awarded £65,000 (€75,425) compensation.

The High Court in Belfast ruled yesterday that Patrick Laverty’s vehicles were illegally taken from him when officials intervened to examine their contents amid suspicions about a landfill destination.

Mr Laverty, who owns RGC International based near Ballymena, Co Antrim, claimed loss and damage caused by the Environmental Heritage Service unlawfully interfering with his property.

His lorries were stopped by police, accompanied by heritage service officials, near Banbridge, Co Down, in September 2004. They were taken to facilities where the waste was removed and examined without anyone acting for Mr Laverty being permitted to be present.

READ MORE

His legal advisers were later informed by phone that the vehicles were detained by enforcement powers under the Waste and Contaminated Land (Northern Ireland) Order 1997.

The lorries had been transporting waste from two business premises in the South Dublin County Council area to Amber Merchants Ltd, trading as Waste Beater Unit, at Kennedy Way Industrial Estate, Belfast.

The destination site was described as a large and technically advanced recycling plant which charges a gate fee by the tonne.

In his judgment, Lord Justice Higgins said: “It was suggested that Waste Beater recycles as much as it can and sells this on and the residue is sent to landfill sites.

“The authorities in Northern Ireland suspected that Waste Beater was a sham concern and that in fact it provided a landfill site for waste from the Republic at a cheaper rate than would apply in that jurisdiction and was not authorised to do so.”

However, when the waste was returned to Dublin for inspection, it was found to comply with types permitted there and could be processed at a modern recycling facility.

Checks on Waste Beater’s premises also confirmed them to be capable of accepting and processing the materials.

After stopping a judicial review case, Mr Laverty instead issued a writ of summons alleging that Environmental Heritage Service officials had breached statutory powers within the order.

Lawyers for the department accepted that it had no power to stop vehicles, with the debate centred on whether there was authority to take a vehicle for examination.

Lord Justice Higgins held that neither a police constable nor an authorised officer has the power under the order to remove or direct the removal of a vehicle, however stopped, to another location to be detained there for any length of time.

“Therefore the answer to the narrow issue which divides the parties is that the plaintiff’s vehicles were unlawfully removed and detained and he is entitled to judgment in the agreed sum of £65,000 and costs,” the judge ruled.