Fly-tipper caught dumping tonnes of household waste is jailed for 12 months

A serial fly-tipper caught on camera dumping tonnes of rubbish behind a row of houses in south London has been jailed for 12 months.

George Smith, 40, took cash in hand for house clearance jobs, but instead dumped the huge mound of waste on other people's doorsteps.

A CCTV camera caught Smith three times tipping cookers, scraps of wood, tiles, rubble and even the base of a bed in an alleyway behind detached houses.

Smith, who was also jailed for fly-tipping in 2009, didn't even stop as the rubbish cascaded from the back of his white tipper van in a cloud of dust.

Smith was jailed for 52 weeks and his two vans were also seized when he appeared before Camberwell Green Magistrates Court in south London for sentencing.

A probation officer, who out together a pre-sentence report, said:

Smith spoke only to maintain his innocence. He denied dumping household and building waste between February 12 and April 11 last year.> Smith claimed at the earlier trial that other people had copied his number plates - known as 'doubling up' - and stuck them on different vehicles.> Smith, defending himself, claimed he had no idea who the van driver captured on film was.> After he was caught fly-tipping on camera Croydon Borough Council seized Smith's van on April 7 last year.> Days later Smith, of Waddon, south London, was filmed again using a different smaller tipper truck to drop even more rubbish.> Just one day after the last offence, he was caught dumping rubbish again in neighbouring Surrey for which he was convicted last October.

Sentencing Smith to a year behind bars, District Judge Karen Hammond said there was no point ordering him to pay costs because there was no prospect of him paying.