He was also been ordered to pay compensation of more than £7,000 to the landowner who was left to clear up the mess.

Grant Brown, 35, of Throckley was sentenced at Newcastle Magistrates’ Court after previously pleading guilty to dumping waste on farmland in Stocksfield, failing to comply with duty of care legislation, and failing to produce waste transfer notes.

He was fined £1,125 and ordered to pay compensation to the landowner of £7,071.20, which is the amount not covered by their insurance for the clearance. Brown will also pay costs of £3,101 and a victim surcharge of £113, and is disqualified from being a company director for three years.

Gary Wallace, Area Environment Manager for the Environment Agency in the North East, said: “Waste criminals target property and land to dump waste they’ve illegally collected and disappear, leaving a huge clean-up bill for landowners, and dumped waste causes contamination and is a major fire risk.

“In this case we were able to trace the waste back to Brown and after an Environment Agency investigation he’s been put before the courts for his offending.”

Brown, trading as GB Waste Management claimed to collect and dispose of waste.

The court heard that an Environment Agency officer discovered the firm did not have an environmental permit and its premises had several skips full of waste including bricks, tiles, plasterboard, wood and soil.

During a follow up visit with Newcastle City Council in November, Brown told officers the company had been dissolved and all skips and trucks had been sold. He said the site would be cleared.

But the company was still active and overnight on 25 November 2021, 20 tonnes of waste was dumped on farmland at Stocksfield. Personal identifiable items were found amongst the construction and domestic waste which the Environment Agency traced back to Brown’s company.

During clearance of the waste – which cost the landowner more than £32,000 – asbestos was found on site, which was traced back to the clearance of a Newcastle City Centre property.