Fly-tipper is fined £4,600 after he was caught on camera dumping a bed at a roadside

Daily Mail​

3 hours ago

A brazen fly-tipper who dumped a bed at the side of a road has been fined thousands of pounds after being caught red-handed.
Litterbug Naiffisa Abba was snapped leaving the bedroom fixture and other trash at a notorious fly-tipping spot in Queensbury Park, north-west London.
In the images, released by Brent Council, Abba can be seen struggling to haul the single divan base across the road before lobbing it next to bags of rubbish.
The litter lout's actions, captured on camera in March 2024, have now seen him hit with a £4,600 fine.
Abbas, of Wembley, was convicted at Willesden Magistrates' Court, where a judge slapped him with a further £2,000 to the initial penalty because he failed to attend his hearing.
The prosecution is part of a major clampdown by Brent Council on fly-tippers, who have been blighting the streets in recent years.
It comes as London continues to be gripped with a fly-tipping epidemic - while England faces its biggest illegal dumping crisis in 20 years.
Bosses at Brent say they 'won't accept' fly-tippers, with council chiefs insisting they have 'ramped up' efforts to bring 'selfish' crooks to justice.
Its campaign, dubbed 'Don't Mess With Brent', has seen a number of secret cameras installed at known hotspots, which are being used to catch litterbugs.
So far, the effort has led to the council issuing 30 per cent more fines as a result.
As well as installing covert surveillance, more enforcement officers have been deployed to patrol the streets.
Offenders are hit with £1,000 fines if officers uncover evidence of them being behind the fly-tipping, with the council warning crooks: 'We will catch you.'
The crackdown was launched in 2024, with Brent declaring it would wage war on 'selfish litter louts' who had blighted the borough - which saw 35,000 reported cases between 2022-2023.
The local authority added the crime costs it in the region of £1.5million to deal with each year.
Councillor Krupa Sheth, the council's environment boss, said: 'We are taking a zero-tolerance approach to fly-tipping, which means you will see more enforcement officers on the streets catching people like we have done here.
'Well done to them and let this be a lesson to anyone considering fly-tipping our streets, we won't accept it.'
The news comes as shocking figures revealed England's fly-tipping crisis had hit a 20-year high this year.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed vowed to toughen up enforcement after reported cases of illegal dumping passed 1.15million in 2023/24.
The figure is an increase of six per cent from the 1.08 million the previous year and the highest level in the six years since the current method for reporting was brought in.
It was also the fourth year in row that councils have dealt with more than a million cases.
However, the figures also revealed a year-on-year fall in the number of fixed penalty notices issued for fly-tipping, and a decline in the number of court-issued fines.
Analysis of the data reveals that London is a major hotspot, with eight boroughs in the top 10 local authorities, in terms of overall dumping and the highest proportion by population.
Nottingham and Liverpool made up the top 10, with other places at the top including Birmingham and Bradford.
Mr Reed said: 'Fly-tipping is a disgraceful act which trashes communities and its increase is unacceptable. Communities and businesses shouldn't have to put up with these crimes.
Environment Secretary Steve Reed vowed to toughen up enforcement after reported cases of illegal dumping passed 1.15million in 2023/24.
'This Government will crack down on fly tipping and punish rubbish dumpers, forcing them to clean up their mess.
Through the new Crime and Policing Bill we will also give ministers the power to issue statutory guidance to councils to drive up fly-tipping enforcement.'
Countryside leaders warned the problem was even greater than the figures suggest as they only include rubbish dumped on public land, while farmers and rural businesses face stress, disruption and 'staggering' costs to clear up waste illegally left on private land.
Last year, some 60 per cent of cases involved household waste, with 688,000 incidents of illegally dumped rubbish from homes, ranging from black bags of waste to the contents of shed clearances, furniture, carpets and DIY.
The most common place for fly-tipping to occur was on pavements and roads, accounting for 37 per cent of incidents.
Nearly a third (31 per cent) of incidents were the size of a small van load, while 28 per cent were the equivalent of a car boot or less of rubbish.
But four per cent were the size of a tipper lorry load or larger, with large fly-tipping incidents costing £13.1 million for councils to clean up, the figures show.
The figures also reveal a slight drop in the number of enforcement actions, with fixed-penalty notices and court fines both down on the previous year.