"Coventry man fined £16,000 for role in major illegal waste operation during COVID"

[dutchman]

Sonial Surpal, from Coventry, was previously jailed for his role in the illegal operation in Lincolnshire



A Coventry man has been ordered to pay £16,000 for his involvement in a large-scale illegal waste operation in Lincolnshire. Sonial Surpal deposited waste at the Long Bennington site between October 2019 and May 2020.

Twelve people were found guilty in 2024 of waste crime charges relating to a site at Fen Lane. Large lorry loads of shredded waste were regularly burned on land near residential properties in Long Bennington near Newark, as previously reported by CoventryLive.

Rubbish was burned daily and buried, with the illegal activity intensifying in March 2020 during COVID. Judge Coupland previously said the gang earned around £500,000 turning a grassed area into a 'smoking wasteland.'

Driver Sonial Surpal, of Round House Road, pleaded guilty to illegally depositing waste at the site and was previously sentenced to 13 months in jail. Now, the 52-year-old has been ordered to pay back £16,511.

Accomplice Luke Woodward, from Nuneaton, was ordered to pay back more than £1,000. Broker Robert Malone was fined £1,165 and ordered to pay back nearly £46,000.

Others involved in the major operation were fined a combined £11,180. In August, Fletcher Plant Limited was found guilty of failing to establish that the site to which they delivered waste was operating legally and ordered to pay a total of £167,587.

[dutchman]

You know instantly when a defendant is described as being a "Coventry man" he is going to have a foreign-sounding name.