A FRIDGE, a sofa and a mattress were among the items dumped by three offenders who have been ordered to pay a total of £2,522 by magistrates.

They were prosecuted as part of Bolton Council’s continuing crackdown on fly-tipping, after failing to pay fixed penalty notices.

Carmen Tomescu, of Woodfield Street, was given an on the spot fine by enforcement officers in August, 2017 after she admitted leaving a fridge in the alley behind her house.

It was never paid and the 42-year-old was subsequently issued with another penalty notice when officers found 12 black bin bags of rubbish in the same spot in Great Lever last November.

She did not pay that either and failed to attend Bolton Magistrates’ Court, where she was fined £440 in her absence and ordered to pay £648 costs and a victim surcharge of £44.

Sandor Zeno Hovarth, aged 22, of Lilly Street, Halliwell, was fined £440 in his absence with £286 costs and a £44 victim surcharge after an officer found a sofa, a chair, chipboard, clothes and other waste behind his house last August.

Ladislav Bihari, of Brandwood Street, Daubhill, left a single mattress leaning against the wall of his backyard in October. The 20-year-old was fined £440 in his absence and ordered to pay £136 costs and a £44 victim surcharge.

Cllr Nick Peel said: “We will continue to crack down on people who blight our borough in this way and we will pursue in court people who do not pay fixed penalty notices. There is no excuse for dumping waste and these fines send a clear message that it will not be.”