A BUSINESSMAN who used his land as an illegal dump, blighting the lives of those living nearby, has been told his jail term was not a day too long.

John Bruce, 46, trousered hundreds of thousands of pounds in profit from handling unlicensed and sometimes hazardous waste at Ridgeway Park Farm, near Throckmorton, between 2011 and 2014.

Some of the waste, including aluminium-contaminated sand which posed a risk of explosion, was buried, and much was burned, creating “thick acrid black smoke.”

The air pollution from the burning was so bad that some people living nearby had to temporarily move out of their homes to escape the choking fumes.

Bruce, of Willow Bank Close, Throckmorton, was jailed for 26 months in May after he admitted environmental offences at Worcester Crown Court.

Last week at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, Judge David Farrer QC heard him argue that he was treated too harshly

The court heard that over 25,000 cubic metres of waste material – weighing more than 10,000 tons – was brought onto the site after Bruce bought it in 2011.

“Fires burned away for days on end”, driving people in neighbouring properties to quit their homes.

“A very high level of nuisance was caused,” said the judge, who was sitting with Lord Justice McCombe and Mr Justice Goose.

Throwing out Bruce’s challenge, Judge Farrer said his punishment was “wholly merited.”

“He made substantial profits, measured in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, from his unlawful activities,” he told the court.

“He had a flagrant disregard for the law for his own financial benefit.

“The sentencing judge was well-placed to make the assessment of the nuisance in this case and concluded that it amounted to a major adverse effect.

“He ignored repeated warnings, something which is bound to have a corrosive effect on public confidence in the regulatory regime.

“This was a case in which there was a multiplicity of aggravating factors and there was comparatively little by way of mitigation.

“The sentence passed was fully merited and was not manifestly excessive or wrong in principle,” concluded Judge Farrer.