Fly-tippers who illegally dumped household and business waste have been hit with fines and costs totalling more than £5,000.

Kirklees Council took court action against two residents and two businesses after tracking them down through items dumped in the rubbish.

The council says the successful prosecutions show that Kirklees is taking fly-tipping seriously and won’t hesitate to track down those responsible and get them before court if necessary.

Clr Naheed Mather, Cabinet member for environment, said the prosecutions sent out a warning and added: “These four cases represent a significant success in our battle against fly-tipping in Kirklees and I want to thank the Greenspace Action Team for its superb work in tracking down the people responsible.

“Let it be made clear, fly-tippers in Kirklees; if you are responsible, we will use everything in our power to find you and make you pay.

“We now have the right to reclaim our costs in finding these criminals and will make sure we do. There is no excuse.”

The council said Eric Farkas, of Crosland Moor, was fined £1,514 for illegally dumping rubbish he collected from a customer in Dewsbury. The woman had contacted Farkas, who had been advertising a waste removal service via Facebook Marketplace, and paid him £100 to remove household waste, garden waste and children’s toys.

But instead of disposing of it properly, he and an unknown associate dumped it on Paul Lane, Colne Bridge. The location is a rural fly-tipping hotspot. It took three council operatives four hours to clear the waste.

Darion Anthony Dawson, of Batley, was fined a total of £628 after he dumped three or four black bin liners full of household waste, food packaging and rotting food waste on the highway at Grange Road, Batley.

Dawson was given the chance to pay a fixed penalty fine to discharge the offence but refused the offer, leaving the council with no alternative but to proceed to prosecution.

He failed to attend the hearing, writing to the court explaining that he had to go to Hungary. His guilty plea was accepted and resulted in a lessening of the fine.

A1 Motor Group Ltd pleaded guilty to seven separate Section 34 offences for loss of control of business waste. The company was fined a total of £2,830.

The matter related to the discovery of a series of incidents, between December 2020 and April 2021, all involved fly-tipping in the Ravensthorpe area of Dewsbury.

On every occasion the waste, which typically consisted of four to five bin liners, contained food packaging, food waste and, pertinently, documents that clearly identified the source of the waste as being A1 Motor Group.

The sole director of A1 Motor Group, Najam Afzal of Dewsbury, claimed to have no knowledge of the incidents, explaining that his brother was responsible for the day-to-day running of the business.

His brother accepted culpability on behalf of the company and the offences against Mr Afzal were withdrawn.

On June 8 2021, Kirklees’ GAT officers were called to a substantial fly-tip on Sandy Lane, Crosland Hill.

The waste consisted of numerous bin liners of food packaging, food waste and cardboard packaging. A search of the waste found evidence linking it to Katie Murphy of Crosland Moor.

Officers visited Miss Murphy who admitted that she used the services of a third party to remove the waste but would not identify them.

Miss Murphy was offered the opportunity to pay a fixed penalty for failing to control the depositing of her waste, but did not take up the offer, which led to her prosecution in court.

She was fined a total of £414 after she was given credit for her early guilty plea and her financial position of being on benefits was considered.