The gang of menacing thugs was ruthless – and apparently free of any concerns for the well-being of their own children.
That is before we come to their innocent victims, with one blameless property owner left an astonishing £300,000 poorer.
Yet at six separate locations, over just 11 months, the criminals’ modus operandi was almost identical and calmly methodical.
The group of Irish travellers, led by Martin Ward, 53, with Patrick Doherty, 42, acting as lieutenant, would arrive at a vacant car park or other empty site between Croydon and Wimbledon in south-west London. Each spot was carefully chosen for being ‘easy to control’.
First the gang would break in, ensuring they retained the ability to relock the gate with their own padlock. Wearing masks to conceal their faces, they would smash and disable any CCTV cameras they could reach. Height-restriction bars would be removed.
If any site owners dared show themselves, they would demand up to £15,000 in return for leaving – their leader adding on one occasion that, if unpaid, ‘I will fill this unit to the brim in two days’.
He meant fill it to the brim with rubbish of course – and charge those who fly-tipped lorry loads of refuse there for the privilege. For that was their filthy ‘dump-and-run’ business – and, regardless of police, bailiffs, or council officers, he really did live up to his word.
That is what emerged at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court last week, when the gang led by Martin Ward finally faced some sort of justice, with two of them jailed, after strewing half of London with hundreds of tons of waste with impunity.
When their demands for cash failed, they would simply park their caravans on site – housing their own wives and children – regardless of the dirty nature of their criminal enterprise.
The children not only helped open gates for fly-tip customers, their very presence aided their families’ criminal conspiracy, as I will explain, all thanks to legal rights travellers are only too familiar with.
And as soon as their families were installed, Doherty and Ward ordered the all-important money-making stage of the operation to begin.
‘Within minutes’, tons of rubbish would be dumped.
A foul cocktail of waste from household clearances including sodden mattresses, old baths, doors and broken furniture, plus worn-out tyres, and builders’ junk, it would go straight on to the ground directly beside their own families’ caravans, where their children played. The revolting business then continued at pace, with multiple tipper-trucks arriving in convoy.
Massive though this criminal conspiracy was, it is just a small part of Britain’s enormous fly-tipping problem, with a horrifying 38million tons of waste dumped illegally every year
In one instance, gang member Michael Ward, 61, was caught on a surviving CCTV camera with a mobile pressed to his ear, directing the arrivals of paying customers.
As four men were last week sentenced after admitting conspiracy to illegally dump controlled waste, prosecuting barrister Brendon Moorhouse told the judge: ‘It was clear people were invited to tip at the sites, with vehicles arriving quickly after they were taken over – many with their plates removed to prevent detection. In many cases the drivers were seen to hand something to the person that let them onto the site.’
That ‘something’ was of course wads of cash, yet it was still far cheaper than using authorised disposal sites – and with no questions asked about whether asbestos or other toxic waste was among their junk.
Massive though this criminal conspiracy was, it is just a small part of Britain’s enormous fly-tipping problem, with a horrifying 38million tons of waste dumped illegally every year, enough to fill Wembley Stadium 35 times over, and public costs of more than £1billion.
Some commentators blame the explosion in unsavoury dumping on the escalation of the ‘landfill tax’, first introduced 30 years ago to encourage recycling. While the tax was initially £7 per ton of waste, it is now £130.75 a ton, a heavy charge for anyone collecting and disposing of waste at legal sites.
At illegal dumps, the far lower charges, cash in hand, make for massive profits all round. But it’s the neighbours, site owners and the public who end up paying.
Last November the Daily Mail revealed that a four-acre field beside the A34 and River Cherwell, near Kidlington village in Oxfordshire, had been bought for £150,000 before being turned into a stinking dump more than 30ft high. It contained enough rubbish to fill a dozen Olympic-sized swimming pools.
But the gang last week convicted for running six smaller waste sites had a special advantage in their operation – thanks in part to the presence of their children.
Gang leader Martin Ward was well aware that, just as any Englishman’s home is his castle, so was his. Even if it is a caravan on someone else’s land. The charity Shelter, for example, tells travellers that: ‘Home is a human right.’
And even if it is on an ‘unauthorised encampment’, such as private land, the police or council have no power to move you.
Only once travellers are formally asked to leave can local authorities seek a court order to move them – a process which can take months to complete. Shelter continues: ‘If there are children on site, the council and police should think about their needs first.’
In our fly-tipping gang’s case, their ‘home’ was also their money-spinning rubbish dump.
It meant they kept at it for almost a year, after starting at the Selco Builders Yard in Mitcham in June 2022. The gang arrived, at 6.22pm one evening, at a clear car park. They moved fast. Within 12 minutes of Martin Ward and Doherty pulling on to the clear location, their caravans behind them, they were using a long pole to push a CCTV camera up to point to the sky.
By chance it promptly slipped back, unnoticed.
It captured the gang leaders removing the height-restriction barrier designed to stop lorries entering. And at 6.44pm, less than half an hour after arrival, Martin Ward drove a tipper-truck straight in. With the aid of Doherty, it immediately dumped tons of waste within yards of their families’ caravans.
Within five days, some 50 truckloads of waste had been dumped – some of the drivers, it was noted, appearing well-known to the gang
More and more came in. After a week of frenetic dumping, the travellers and their caravans simply moved on. Four months later, the group entered a site in Jubilee Square, New Malden. It was empty, having been a Covid testing centre. The lock on the gate was removed – and replaced – and a phalanx of caravans moved in at 7.36pm. Along with their all-important tipper-trucks.
Doherty was filmed emerging from his caravan at 9.10am the next morning and pointing at a CCTV camera. Minutes later he used his vehicle to dump a load of plastic containers on the site.
By 11.30am, a van had arrived. Martin Ward drove it to the rear of the site, and dumped waste there.
At one point, said Mr Moorhouse: ‘Martin Ward, wearing a face mask to hide his identity, worked with the driver of a vehicle to sort through waste – most likely to remove identifying addresses.’
A similar process continued on the third day, and the fourth – when there were ‘12 identified deposits’ – and the fifth day (‘14 deposits’) and the sixth day, the cameras capturing money handed over to the gang, and more removal of address labels. Michael Ward was caught on camera at one point, ‘with a child, who opened the gate’ as ‘another tipper-truck entered at speed before dumping waste’. It seemed to be driven by the fourth gang member, Simon O’Donnell, 37, who tried to pull the hood of his Nike top over his face.
Within five days, some 50 truckloads of waste had been dumped – some of the drivers, it was noted, appearing well-known to the gang – before the travellers moved on.
Just over two weeks later they arrived at their next known target, in Denmark Road, Carshalton. It was occupied over a weekend by the usual convoy of caravans, CCTV capturing Martin Ward breaking a gate padlock.
Within a couple of days police arrived – by which time ‘there was already a significant new fly-tip present’ – along with Sutton Borough Council officers and bailiffs from a security firm acting against the trespass.
But, Mr Moorhouse told the court: ‘The group were aggressive and said they would not leave unless forcibly removed.’
Once the officials had left, the gang carried on. Over four consecutive days ‘a stream of vehicles could be seen arriving at the site carrying waste – and leaving empty’. Some 27 truckloads were identified. The cameras next caught up with the gang in March 2023, on a site on Imperial Way in Croydon, operated by the National Timber Group. It was broken into at 7am, gate locks and security cameras smashed. At that point, the site was vacant.
When a Timber Group member of staff rushed to the scene, he was not only ‘intimidated’ and told he could not enter, but, said Mr Moorhouse, ‘a demand of £15,000 was made’ if he wanted the gang to leave.
Over the next 11 days, 33 different trucks arrived and dumped tons of waste, some repeatedly – notably six loads in one vehicle driven by Martin Ward himself; four in a truck insured for Doherty – until the site was full.
The travellers moved on. The National Timber Group had to spend £300,000 on repairs, court fees – and to legitimately dispose of the junk.
Only once travellers are formally asked to leave can local authorities seek a court order to move them – a process which can take months to complete
Exactly a month later, the gang were at it again at a vacant warehouse awaiting demolition on Station Road in Colliers Wood. The ‘traveller encampment’ had been established there for two days, junk already being poured in, when Goody Demolition Ltd worker James Wall dared to enter. Mr Wall later gave evidence about the chilling demand made by ‘Martin… who was the leader of the group’.
Mr Moorhouse said the gang leader told him: ‘If he was paid £5,000 they would leave the site within five minutes. They had previously been paid to leave the same site by the owners; that had clearly not prevented them from returning. The gang leader added that, if unpaid, ‘‘I will fill this unit to the brim in two days”.’
No blackmail money being paid, the gang carried on, ignoring attending police and bailiffs, until the empty warehouse was full of waste 5ft high.
Within three days of arriving, Martin Ward ordered the caravans to move on. The clean-up cost £25,000.
Just over a month later, the caravans made camp behind the loading bay at the Sofology furniture store in Kingston Road, New Malden. Doherty was caught on camera dumping more waste.
But it is only three years later that the gang finally faced justice… of sorts.
The Environment Agency had to invest in a huge operation, codenamed Operation Angola, to convict them, combing through hundreds of hours of grainy CCTV.
And the gang strung it out to the last. Although the case eventually reached Crown Court in March last year, Martin Ward did not plead guilty until June, the rest not until the eve of the planned trial in February.
And even then, the resulting sentences seem lenient.
There has been talk of seizing offenders’ vehicles and putting three points on their licences. An Economic Crime Unit can freeze and seize culprits’ assets.
Gang leader Martin Ward – most recently of Rickmansworth, Herts, and already in prison for nine years for another, unidentified, serious offence – was given an additional 18 months’ jail.
His lieutenant Doherty, of Boarstall, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for 28 months.
But their accomplices Michael Ward, of Rickmansworth, and O’Donnell, of London, both of whom had previous convictions for fly-tipping, were freed with suspended sentences of 14 months. The pair were also given a rather optimistic ‘rehabilitation requirement’, plus 150 hours’ unpaid work.
No orders for costs or compensation were made, despite the ruinous impact on victims.
And Martin Ward, whose crimes left clean-up bills of half a million pounds, was told to pay a pathetic ‘victim surcharge’ of just £187.
