A man toured the country conning customers over the disposal of harmful asbestos.

Lee Charles told dozens of people – including some in north Kent – he was authorised to take the waste away when he was not.

According to the Environment Agency, Charles charged a Gravesend homeowner £1,000 in March 2019 to dismantle a garage. He then removed the debris, including harmful asbestos, to his yard 150 miles away in Lincolnshire.

A court heard the 40-year-old marketed himself as Lincs Demolition Ltd for two years, claiming he was registered to remove asbestos to gain lucrative jobs but he had no legal permit to carry out the work.

Having duped his customers, Charles stashed the waste in hired containers at Welbourn in Lincolnshire, 200m from a school and close to a Girl Guide centre.

He told the owners of the storage space he wanted to keep tools there. When he failed to pay the rent, they forced the locks and were confronted with the dangerous contents.

Asbestos is a hazardous substance when disturbed and carcinogenic. The UK banned its use in 1999.

Once exposed, Charles abandoned the storage containers, moving his activities to an un-permitted waste site 16 miles away near Sleaford, where he continued to store asbestos unsafely, posing a risk to public health.

Paul Salter, an environmental waste crime officer for the Environment Agency, said: "Lee Charles’s crimes were not just illegal, but dangerous.

"In spite of repeated warnings and advice from the Environment Agency, Lincs Demolition, under Charles’s direction, put both the environment and public health at risk.

"Asbestos causes serious health problems when inhaled, and its careless storage presents a significant hazard, with a risk to the life.

"With Charles failing to pay for appropriate staff training and safe storage among other liabilities, Lincs Demolition avoided business costs of at least £50,000.

"All waste businesses must have the correct permits in place to protect themselves, the environment and the public. We support operators trying to do the right thing, only issuing enforcement notices and penalising businesses as a last resort."

Charles from Lincolnshire targeted more than 40 different places across England.

Imposing a 12-month prison sentence, recorder Paul Mann told Charles, who has a string of previous convictions for dishonesty and breaches of court orders, he "knew the regulatory regime well enough to know what he was doing was seriously wrong".

However, he said that he was "just" able to suspend the sentence for a period of two years so Charles could pay the Environment Agency’s costs to be decided later and compensation to the owners of the Welbourn containers for the significant costs they had incurred in cleaning up the site.

Lincoln Crown Court was told Charles, of Caldicot Gardens, Grantham, pleaded guilty to lying to customers and giving false paperwork to disguise his deception.

He will be attending again on June 13, when the court will decide on a proceeds of crime order against him.

Charles pleaded guilty to two counts of operating a waste operation without a permit between 2017 and 2019, contrary to various environmental permitting regulations.

He also pleaded guilty to two counts of keeping or disposing of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution or harm, contrary to multiple sections of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.