A MELKSHAM scrap yard boss who ran an illegal waste operation dumping stone off cuts and sludge on a farmyard is being chased for millions by the Environment Agency.

Lee Hazel and his company Melksham Metal Recycling face a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing where the authorities try to claw back their ill gotten gains.

A judge at Swindon Crown Court has been told that the 48-year-old and his firm could be asked to stump up as much as £3m, and millions more if he has it.

Thomas Forster, for the Crown, said that while the benefit gained from the illegal dumping was just over £675,000 a financial investigation uncovered other matters.

The court heard the Environment Agency is seeking to find Hazell benefitted from crime by as much £5.5m for activities at the yard.

However it is said that he only has in the region of £3m, including houses on Pembroke Road and in Beanacre, and vehicles worth £88,000.

Nicolas Gerasimidis, defending, said his client was suffering from mental health issues and had not made the sums of money being alleged.

He said that forensic accountants and other experts would be called to refute the figure being alleged by the Environment Agency.

Since his client was spared jail in February he said the yard had been closed down, despite being the cleanest in the county, after his licences were revoked.

"His business which has been his for 20 years has been taken from under his feet," he said.

Judge Tim Mousley QC, who has yet to pass sentence on the company, adjourned the case to November 11.

Hazel was spared jail for dumping waste by the old Wilts and Berks Canal as well as taking in vast quantities of rubbish which he was not permitted to handle.

He was caught after a county council enforcement officer visited a farm in Lowbourne belonging to Richard Bourne in 2011.

After spotting a huge variety of waste material dumped on fields and by the old canal, he also saw a line of 'chalky liquid' on the road.

He followed the trail, which was similar to sludge dumped on the farm, and found it led him close to Station Yard, where Melksham Metal Recycling is based.

A couple of weeks later, when the Environment Agency visited the farm, they spotted a Melksham Metals lorry laden with stone driving on to the site.

Hazel, of Pembroke Road, Melksham, and the company were found guilty after trial in 2014 of disposing controlled waste without a permit.

Last November he and the company pleaded guilty to ten regulatory offences relating to taking waste without correct permits.

They admitted the unauthorised treatment of controlled waste at the site on Station Yard, Bath Road, from 2004 to 2008, breaching a waste control licence, operating a regulated facility without a permit by processing stone dust, and having waste without authorisation.

Hazel was sentenced to 18 months, suspended for two years, and not barred from being a company director.