Two Northampton men fined total of more than £300,000 for running illegal waste tyre site

Nimesh Patel, age 52, of Jasper Walk, Thorplands Brook, and Andrew Eyre, age 55, of Poppy Field Road, Wootton, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on March 28 for a Proceeds of Crime judgment.

The duo had already been sentenced for their part in running a waste tyre site - Synergy Tyres (Midland) Ltd, which was based at Broad March Industrial Estate in Daventry.

In September 2024, Eyre, a director of the company, received an 18-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months and 30 days of rehabilitation activities.

Patel, who had been operations manager, was sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and 80 hours of unpaid work.

Now, the pair have been ordered to pay a total of £313,382.45. Patel was ordered to pay £175,013.93 and a £122 surcharge while Eyre received an order for £138,368.52 and £140 surcharge.

Peter Stark, enforcement leader for the Environment Agency’s Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire Area, said: “The case shows that we’re not just content to prosecute those who run illegal waste sites, we’ll also come after them to get back the profits they made from their illegal activities and to recoup taxpayers’ money spent on pursuing them.

“Waste crime can have a serious environmental impact which puts communities at risk and undermines legitimate business and the investment and economic growth that go with it.

“We support legitimate businesses and we are proactively supporting them by disrupting and stopping the criminal element backed up by the threat of tough enforcement as in this case.

“We continue to use intelligence-led approaches to target the most serious crimes and evaluate which interventions are most effective.

Patel and Eyre have been given three months to pay their fines or they will face three and two years in prison, respectively. Eyre was also fined £250 for breach of his first suspended sentence of imprisonment he received in January 2020.

The Daventry site operated without an environmental permit and tyres were stored in an unsafe manner, creating a significant fire risk and therefore a high pollution risk, according to the Environment Agency.

From February 2020, Environment Agency officers inspected the site multiple times over the course of a year, and each time witnessed huge amounts of tyres that exceeded the legal limit.

The investigation found that the 40-tonne weekly limit for the storage or treatment of waste tyres was exceeded in 52 out of the 59 weeks analysed.

This probe followed a court case in January 2020, for the same nature of offending, when Synergy Tyres (Midland) Ltd was fined £11,250.

Eyre received a suspended 12-month sentence (suspended for 24 months) on condition that he stayed out of trouble and performed 150 hours of unpaid work.

At the 2020 hearing, John Mullen, then 59 of Frankston Avenue, Milton Keynes, received a six-month community order with a requirement that he completed 15 days of Rehabilitation Activities.

At the confiscation hearing on March 28, Mullen received an order for £1 and a surcharge of £85.

Eyre and Mullen had been joint directors of a company called IN4 Ltd until February 2017, when Eyre retired, leaving Mullen as the sole director.