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Cotswolds fly-tipping crackdown holds homeowners accountable

Cotswolds fly-tipping crackdown holds homeowners accountable

BBC News7 hours ago
An initiative to crack down on homeowners using rogue disposal operators has been launched by an authority in response to the problem of fly-tipping.'Your rubbish, Your Responsibility', launched by Cotswold District Council, is a way of reminding residents of their legal responsibilities when paying someone to get rid of their rubbish.Kev Lea, the councils enviro-crimes programme officer, said when fly-tipping is reported the rubbish will be searched to find the original owners, who can then be handed a £600 Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN).A spokesperson for the authority said residents must ensure anyone removing their waste must have the right licence.
Mr Lea said with fly-tipping it is very hard to find the person or company who took away the waste and disposed of it illegally."These individuals use Facebook and social media and it's very difficult for officers from any council to find or identify them or where they are from," he added.So if fly-tipped waste cannot be tracked back to them, the householder will be looked at for accountability and if waste has been dumped illegally it "could end up costing them hundreds of pounds in fines".
'Dangerous and illegal'
Cllr Andrea Pellegram, cabinet member for environment and regulatory services, said: "Everyone has a duty of care when it comes to waste disposal, and it's vital that residents take that responsibility seriously."Fly-tipping is not just illegal – it's dangerous and a blight on our countryside, our streets, and our environment. By carrying out simple checks before handing over your waste, you help protect your community and avoid a costly fine."A contractor must have a waste carrier's licence reference beginning with CBDU and ending with 1 to 6 numbers. Legitimate and responsible contractors should provide this reference in their advert or upon request, she said. Homeowners are also advised to make note of vehicle registration numbers, phone and business contact and make sure they know where the waste will be disposed of.
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Three years later, he was recruited to the SFO for one last assignment: investigating suspected fraud and bribery at a mining company that had been among the most valuable listed on the London Stock Exchange. Three oligarchs, known as the Trio, were the founders and largest shareholders of the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC). It owned mines from Kazakhstan to Congo extracting coal, chrome and cobalt. Every few days it made revenues bigger than the SFO's annual budget. The team Coussey joined followed money trails between Swiss banks, African kleptocracies, ex-Soviet dictatorships and the Mayfair property market. In 2018, after five years on the case, Coussey called an end to his career. 'I don't think he really wanted to retire,' said Martin, his SFO colleague and fellow surveillance target. 'He loved his job and he did it in a really calm and classy way.' By then, the ENRC case had become one of the highest-stakes investigations in the SFO's history. It seemed that criminal charges were close. The SFO's prosecutors had interviewed one of the oligarchs, plus the son-in-law of another. The oligarchs and their company denied wrongdoing. ENRC's lawyers were on the counterattack. As part of a high court claim against the SFO, they alleged that Coussey had negligently mishandled evidence. A judge would find no 'knowing or reckless breach of duty'. But the legal action had revealed Coussey's identity as a member of the investigation team and put him on the oligarchs' radar. In retirement, Coussey fell into ill-health. The spies' surveillance images of him are time-stamped: a Monday morning in February 2020. They show an elderly man outside his home, bald and bespectacled in a jersey and bodywarmer, pottering between the garage and a blue hatchback. Coussey has since died. Martin called him one of the prosecutors of his generation. He was 'the most upright lawyer you could ever meet', albeit with a fondness for rude jokes. 'He's given his country immense service.' Entrusted with powers to seize evidence, SFO prosecutors undergo security vetting. During his years at the agency, Martin was aware of 'near constant' cyber-attacks. So sensitive was the oligarchs' case that Coussey and the rest of the investigating team worked from a restricted area of the SFO's headquarters off Trafalgar Square. Sons of the Soviet Union's central Asian provinces, the Trio's path to riches began when two of them worked at a KGB business venture in Moscow during the fall of communism. They have used an assortment of private intelligence companies since arriving in London in the mid-2000s. There were the former agents of Mossad and other Israeli intelligence and military services who set up Black Cube and Diligence, run by alumni of MI5 and UK special forces. These operatives targeted Neil Gerrard, a former ENRC lawyer who, a judge would later find, leaked to the SFO as he milked the oligarchs for fees. Both firms say they played no part in the surveillance of former SFO prosecutors. That surveillance began in 2019, directed by Dmitry Vozianov, a Russian consultant who handles 'special situations' for oligarchs. Vozianov fends off threats to his clients' business interests, overseeing lawyers, spies and public relations experts. Faced with an SFO investigation, the Trio hired him. For this covert surveillance operation, Vozianov deployed a decorated veteran of the parachute regiment. Damian Ozenbrook served in Afghanistan, Northern Ireland and the Balkans. After leaving the military, he set up his private intelligence company , Blue Square Global. The goals of the surveillance Vozianov assigned to Ozenbrook were 'to know what was going on in the SFO', said a source with knowledge of the operation, and to find out 'what, if any, informants the SFO were using'. The source believes it was 'all about leverage'. Vozianov did not respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for Ozenbrook's firm did not dispute that his operatives spied on former SFO prosecutors on Vozianov's instructions – though they said there had been no surveillance of serving SFO personnel. The oligarchs' operatives also watched John Gibson, a barrister who had run the SFO's ENRC investigation for four years. Gibson left the SFO for a law firm in 2018. A letter he received two years later from ENRC's lawyers at the US firm Quinn Emanuel stated that he had been seen meeting a journalist in the National Theatre's underground car park in September 2020. An SFO spokesperson said: 'We have been aware of the risk of surveillance for many years and our first priority is always the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues. We note that this report relates to surveillance of former colleagues following their departure from the SFO.' In 2023, after a high court judge found the SFO had been wrong to accept leaked material from ENRC's lawyer at the outset of its investigation, the agency dropped the case. There was, it said, 'insufficient admissible evidence' to bring charges. Two of the oligarchs have died during the long struggle with UK law enforcement, their stakes passing to their heirs. The Russian state banks that backed them are now under sanctions. Nonetheless, their corporation is due to receive millions from the public purse as damages. While surveillance by state agencies is highly regulated – the SFO would have needed a warrant to conduct an operation like the oligarchs' – surveillance by private firms is not. Slaughter, the MP, said: 'Everything about this rings alarm bells, from the Russia links to the involvement of ex-security force operatives.' He said it raised 'wider issues for the government as to how it regulates private investigators'.

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