THE boss of a Brierley Hill waste firm has been told he will have to serve the remainder of his six-month prison sentence after a failed attempt to purge his contempt of court order.

At the High Court in Leicester on Thursday January 16, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave heard an application by Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) director Robert McNaughton who was campaigning to be released from prison – where he has been since December 23 for breaching undertakings given to the court about clearing the waste-filled Moor Street site.

The Environment Agency was in court to oppose the application which was dismissed – and Mr McNaughton was returned to jail to serve what’s left of his sentence which was activated after the company director failed a last chance to clear the eyesore site which has overshadowed people’s homes.

A spokesman for the Environment Agency said: “When giving judgement Mr Justice Haddon-Cave concluded that Mr McNaughton had not taken adequate steps to clear the site and had not yet been sufficiently punished for his contempt of court. "

The ruling comes just days after the Agency received reports that waste bales had been removed from the front of the site – where, at its worst, the pile of rubbish towered at 40-feet.

The Environment Agency welcomed the removal of the bales as a “positive development” in the saga but a spokesman urged members of public with concerns about the site to call the Agency's incident hotline on 0800 80 70 60.