A FUGITIVE fly-tipper who dumped rubbish bags at a beauty spot more than a year ago has finally been brought to justice.

Alan Ward left bags of household waste on a river embankment at Chapel Place, a private road of terrace cottages off Radcliffe Road on the banks of the River Tonge near the aqueduct in Darcy Lever.

He left the refuse in undergrowth on July 3, 2015.

The same year he was charged in a prosecution brought by Bolton Council under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

However the 32-year-old failed to attend court on two separate occasions.

It led to magistrates issuing a warrant for his arrest in July last year.

Ward, of Barry Way, Hall i’ th’ Wood, eventually surfaced and was taken into custody by the police and brought before the court again on February 2.

He admitted fly-tipping and was fined £1,584 and ordered to pay £200 court costs and a £158 victim surcharge.

After, Bolton Council’s executive cabinet member for environmental services, Cllr Nick Peel, said: “Fly-tipping is anti-social behaviour, which blights the local area and causes all sorts of problems for local people.

“The waste also costs local taxpayers for the council to remove it.

“We are pleased that these fines have been handed out and hope they will act as a deterrent to those thinking of leaving their waste in the back streets in future.”

Ward’s guilty plea and sentence follows at least 11 other cases in which residents who were convicted and fined for illegally dumping garbage, including bulky furniture and bin bags, in the borough’s back streets.

Two others who allowed waste to mount up in their own gardens and back yards were similarly prosecuted and fined.

It forms part of the council’s ongoing crackdown on environmental offenders wasting taxpayer cash on costly clear-ups.

nInformation on dumped rubbish and fly-tippers can be reported to Bolton Council via www.bolton.gov.uk/flytipping