A London builder has been taken to court after rubbish was dumped at a flytipping hotspot by a man he had paid to dispose of it.

Audrius Preimonas, 45, project manager at VA Joinery & Carpentry Ltd, denied any knowledge of the illegal dumping in Little Marlow when he was interviewed at a London police station.

He told officers a man named only as Martin had removed two loads of waste from a site where work was taking place.

He admitted that the company had done nothing to confirm Martin's identity or credentials.

Interestingly, the company had refused to pay Martin cash in hand - it was arranged that he would come to the company's office afterwards to collect payment, but he never showed up.

A member of the public found the dumped rubbish in Muschallik Road - a privately-owned road forming the approach to sewage works, which is not part of the site owned by Thames Water - on April 14 last year.

In the rubbish, the member of the public found details in the dumped material which were traced by Waste Partnership for Buckinghamshire investigators to work carried out by VA Joinery & Carpentry Ltd.

The magistrates fined VA Joinery & Carpentry Ltd £2,000 for duty of care failures regarding the waste, and fined Mr Preimonas £1,077 for the same offence.

Investigation and legal costs were ordered to a total of £600 and victim surcharges totalling £277 were also levied - making a combined total to pay of £3,954.

The area where this rubbish was dumped is frequently used by fly-tippers for the illegal disposal of waste, presenting a serious clearance problem for the private landowner.

Wycombe District Council cabinet member for environment Julia Adey, speaking on behalf of the Waste Partnership for Buckinghamshire, said: "This case yet again underlines the importance of identifying waste carriers properly - this is particularly an issue in the building trade, which is targeted by opportunistic waste criminals.

"Although the company in this case did the right thing by refusing to pay cash in hand, they made no other checks to establish the identity of the carrier. So when the man failed to turn up to receive payment, the company had no means of tracing him, and they then became liable for the fly tipping themselves through failure in their duty of care."

Report fly-tipping in Buckinghamshire at www.fixmystreet.buckscc.gov.uk.