By Martin Lea @DorsetEchoMart

A serial fly-tipper who dumped waste in places around Dorchester has been given a community order and ordered to pay compensation.

Dominic Adrian Woods, aged 31, of no fixed abode, was previously found guilty in a trial at the magistrates court of fly tipping offences and failing to provide waste transfer notes.

He appeared before Weymouth Magistrates Court to be sentenced last Friday.

The offences included an instance where in July of last year he dumped a sizeable amount of household waste which he collected from a householder in Dorchester. They were left at storage units at The Grove he was renting. Woods was ordered to clear out the units when he did not keep up with the payments, but did not do so. The removal of the refuse had to be paid at considerable cost to the owner.

Another instance involved Woods dumping waste in the Whitcombe area. A bar manager had called on him to clear 40 bags of waste, some of which was found at the site of the fly-tipping.

After an investigation, Woods was arrested on suspicion of fly-tipping after being traced to Portland. Woods had been operating a company called ‘Hashtag Trashtag’.

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At his sentencing hearing, chairman of the bench Callum Bremner said of the fly-tipping: "We believe that this was a deliberate act."

Woods was given a 12-month community order with a 15 day rehabilitation requirement plus a requirement to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work. He was also ordered to pay compensation of £800.

The magistrates said that because Woods is receiving Universal Credit and does not have another source of income, he would not be ordered to make any other payments to the court.

Woods told the court: "This last year-and-a-half has been absolute hell, and I just want to put this part of my life behind me and I want to move on."

Dorset Waste Partnership said Woods has previously been given fixed penalty notices for fly-tipping and failing to produce waste transfer notes.

Speaking after the case, Jeremy Gallagher, enforcement officer for Dorset Waste Partnership, said: "We are very pleased with the verdict. This is a person that has been previously dealt with by enforcement officers for similar crimes, as the court heard.

"The victim of this criminality has been compensated by the court, which is also very pleasing to see."

Originally published in the Dorset Echo

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