A TRUCKER'S actions led to the illegal dumping of tonnes of waste from a North Yorkshire spy base - and landed his employer in court yesterday.

Rubbish from the American listening station at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, should have gone to a Dales quarry.

Instead, it was tipped in a lay-by beside the Ripon to Pateley Bridge road at Sawley.

Civil engineering contractors Hughes Plant (Leeds) Ltd pleaded guilty at Harrogate Magistrates' Court to tipping controlled waste without a waste management licence.

Solicitor Geoffrey Rogers told the court that the blame lay with one of the three drivers the company employed.

Mr Rogers said: "He wanted to get home early as he believed his girlfriend was having an affair and he wanted to catch her with the other man.''

So the driver defied his orders and used a lay-by rather than travelling to Skipton Rock Quarry, where a £120 fee was paid for each of the 15 to 20 loads dropped.

Mr Rogers said the driver had been dismissed instantly and the company, which was in financial difficulties, largely caused by the foot-and-mouth outbreak, now had just one employee.

The man behind the company, who had put money of his own into the venture, which lost £22,000 in the year to April, was struggling to keep it afloat.

The company, of Hartwith Drive, in Harrogate, was fined £1,500 and ordered to pay £967.94 costs.

Steven Alderson, prosecuting for the Environment Agency, said the case followed a complaint from a motorist who saw a load of several tonnes of green wire fencing, concrete posts, timber and razor wire tipped from a lorry in the lay-by.

The waste was traced back to Menwith Hill and to the company.