A man who collected waste from people's homes, then dumped it in the countryside, has been given a suspended sentence.

Johnathan Elyja Smith, 43, took the household items from homes in Deal and Margate before fly-tipping them.

He has now been prosecuted by Dover District Council (DDC) following an investigation.

The authority was first tipped off on August 9, 2021 when an incident of fly-tipping on land off Sandwich Lane in Frogham was reported to them.

The waste consisted of corrugated sheeting, 25 bags of waste including wood, cardboard packaging and metal, and a concrete tank.

The waste included documents relating to an address in Deal.

Following enquiries from the council's environmental crime team, CCTV footage of the man who collected the waste was located, and the man was identified as Mr Smith.

Then on September 2, 2021, a further incident of fly-tipping was reported in the same area.

The waste included bags of clothes, food items, wrappers, a mattress, broken glass and children’s toys.

This time the waste included documents relating to an address in Margate.

The householder there said a man in a white van had taken the rubbish away, and the man was identified as Mr Smith.

In another incident on July 15, 2021, officers from Kent Police had stopped a white van, which was found to have a quantity of scrap metal.

The driver admitted that he had no scrap metal licence.

DDC served Mr Smith two notices requiring him to produce waste transfer notes and his authority to transport controlled waste.

When these were not provided, DDC took the matter to court, along with two fly-tipping offences and the failure to have a scrap metal dealers’ licence.

Mr Smith, of Chilton Place, Ash, pleaded guilty to two offences of fly-tipping, and offences of failure to produce waste transfer notes, failure to produce a waste carriers’ licence, and operating as an unlicensed scrap metal collector.

On Monday, at Folkestone Magistrates’ Court, he was sentenced to eight months imprisonment suspended for 12 months, 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days, and a curfew for 6 months between 7pm and 7am and ordered to pay £150 costs, £156 victim surcharge, and £324 compensation.

He was also given a five year Criminal Behaviour Order, which prohibits him from: collecting, carrying or transporting controlled waste including scrap metal from any residential or business premises of which he is not the premises owner or lawful occupier; and approaching any person on entering the curtilage of any residential or commercial premises to solicit or offer to remove waste material from any premises, other than his own.