A SCRAPYARD boss who ran an illegal waste operation faces ruin after a court ordered he hand over more than £2.5 million of ill-gotten gains.

Lee Hazel has been made subject to a court order which 'removes from him everything that he has', as a result of his rogue operation.

He and his company dumped stone off-cuts and sludge on farmland and in a disused canal as well as carrying out illicit operations at his town centre yard.

Now the 48-year-old, who has houses on Pembroke Road and in Beanacre, has been given three months to hand over £2,742,953.68 or face an eight-year jail term.

As well as making the huge payment under the Proceeds of Crime Act his company, Melksham Metal Recycling, will also have to pay £700 in fines.

Judge Tim Mousley QC, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, ruled Hazel and the company, of which he is the sole director, benefitted from crime by £3,002,705.15.

Because he only has £2,742,953.68 in realisable assets, including vehicles worth £88,000, a confiscation order could only be made to match what he had.

Should he not make the payment then he faces the eight-year sentence and will still have the debt hanging over him.

If he comes into money in the future it will still be open to the authorities to come back to seek the outstanding quarter of a million pounds.

The judge said he could only give him three months to make the payment, though as there were properties to sell it is possible to seek an extension.

Nicolas Gerasimidis, defending, said "It is inevitably going to come back to court. Your Honour's confiscation order effectively removes from him everything that he has."

Because of the size of the order the judge imposed 'nominal' £100 fines on the seven charges the firm had pleaded guilty to.

He also said he could not order the Environment Agency's costs of bringing the case, which has dragged on for five years, which stand at £152,285.41.

A hearing last year was told the despite being the cleanest in the county Hazel's yard, which he has run for 20 years, was closed down as his licences were revoked.

Last year he was spared jail for his part in 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 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 onto the site.

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

In November 2015 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 2004-2008, 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.