Somerset farmer fined for second time for polluting watercourse
Date of alert:
Wednesday, 23 February 2022
Crime Ref:
Force:
Avon & Somerset Constabulary
Stoke St Gregory farmer Ben Hembrow has been ordered to pay £11,000 for polluting a watercourse with slurry in 3 separate incidents for the second time in 5 years.
Hembrow, of Huntham Farm, Stoke St Gregory, pleaded guilty to polluting a watercourse, a tributary of Sedgemoor Old Rhyne, 3 times.
A short distance downstream the watercourse enters the West Sedgemoor Site of Special Scientific, the Somerset Levels and Moors Special Protection Area and RAMSAR site.
The case was heard at Taunton Magistrates’ Court on 6 October 2021, when the 33-year-old was ordered to pay the Environment Agency costs of £9,567.38, fines totalling £1,689 and a victim surcharge of £168.
On 19 June 2019, following a report of low dissolved oxygen levels on the Sedgemoor Old Rhyne, Environment Officers found a tributary polluted with slurry. They traced the pollution back to Huntham Farm, where a slurry lagoon had overtopped. Slurry had run across a farm track, collected in the orchard, and made its way to the watercourse, polluting more than 1.5 kilometres.
A week later, although the farmer had taken action to try and prevent further pollution, slurry was still visible on the bed of the watercourse.
