Caught on camera

9:44am Thursday 21st August 2008

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By Ash Bolton »

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THROWING an assortment of rubbish over his fence into a nature conservation area may have seemed like an easy option for this Southampton man.

But little did Carl Rossiter realise his every move was being videotaped by his eagle-eyed next-door neighbours from their upstairs bedroom window.

The 39-year-old dad of three was accused of throwing items including a plastic swimming pool, paint tins, a child's bike, scaffolding poles, planks of wood and even a cement mixer into Cotswood Copse.

Click here to watch the video of Carl Rossiter caught in the act

Now, thanks to the video footage, the chef has been ordered to pay out £720 after Southampton Magistrates' Court found him guilty of fly-tipping.

Following the incident in September 2005 a team of ten community volunteers and city council workers were drafted in to remove the rubbish by hand.

The group spent two hours removing eight cubic metres of rubbish from his former home at Vince Road which is estimated to have cost the tax payer £470, the court heard.

Rossiter, a chef at a care home who now lives in Green Lane, Millbrook, pleaded guilty to the charge of fly-tipping but denied being responsible for all the rubbish found behind his back garden.

Under cross-examination from prosecutor Mary Migonya, former neighbour Alan Buvill said he and his partner Jean watched Rossiter for more than two hours as he threw dozens of items into the marshy area.

Mr Buvill said: "There was a cement mixer, paints cans, a bird aviary, a swimming pool, a pushbike, bags of rubbish and oilcans. Everything ended up in there.

"It would be very difficult for other people to get to the back and dump rubbish on the other side of his house. It's extremely muddy and more like a swamp sometimes."

Jane Hemmings, defending Rossiter, said: "They (Mr Rossiter's neighbours) exaggerated what was dumped in Cotswood Copse to get him into trouble."

Rossiter told the court that the area was a wellknown dumping ground and that other people had dumped the rubbish behind his property.

He said: "I admit I did chuck some stuff like the kids' paddling pool but most of the stuff was not mine."

But after watching the video footage the court said it believed he was responsible for the mess. They ordered him to pay £470.68 in costs and gave him a £250 fine.

The maximum penalty for fly-tipping is £50,000 and two years in prison.