Fly-tipping magistrate caught on film

This is the moment that could cost magistrate Jai Ramrattan his career on the bench.

He was caught on camera dumping a pile of rubbish outside a youth centre.

He was photographed making several trips from his car to deposit underlay, black bags and household waste under a tree.

Now, with a conviction for flytipping, Ramrattan faces expulsion from the bench at Wimbledon magistrates court and says his life has been thrown into turmoil.

"There will be lots of repercussions," he said. "There is going to be tremendous upheaval in my life."

When first confronted with the pictures, captured outside Pollards Hill Youth Centre in Mitcham on 16 August, Ramrattan told council investigators that he did not realise he was doing anything wrong.

"Two years ago, everyone dumped and the council were collecting it religiously like it was a dumping place specifically for the council," he said.

The JP pleaded guilty at Kingston magistrates' court and was fined ?200 with ?550 in costs.

Lance Kearney, representing Merton council, said that Ramrattan had initially been unco-operative.

He said: "The council wrote a letter to Mr Ramrattan. The letter was returned to the council's officers with the words 'travelling away from home' written on it. The council enforcement officers expected more co-operation."

After a visit from the council and the police, Ramrattan came in for an interview and admitted dumping the waste but he denied it was fly-tipping.

Mr Kearney said: "He said that he did not agree and that he was a justice of the peace and that he knew what constituted fly-tipping."

In mitigation, Ramrattan said that he had dumped the rubbish because the council had not collected it from his home and it was beginning to smell.

He said he had been under the impression that it was acceptable to dump rubbish there, as the council regularly collected waste from that spot.

Since he was caught on camera, the council has put up a sign warning it is illegal to fly-tip there.

The Greater London Magistrates Authority will be informed of the conviction and will advise the Department for Constitutional Affairs on what action to take.

Merton's environment chief councillor Linda Kirby said: "Dumping waste in the borough is an environmental crime and we will continue to tackle the problem."

She added: "A missed collection is not an excuse to fly-tip in the borough."

Dumped waste costs local authorities almost ?100 a minute to clear up, according to Flycapture, a national flytipping database set up last year by Defra, the Environment Agency and the Local Government Association.

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