The owner of a van used to dump three sofa cushions in Painswick has been prosecuted after the driver was caught in the act by a member of the public.

Magistrates have ordered Daniel Welsh from Brockworth to pay a £300 fine, a victim surcharge of £30 and Stroud District Council's clean-up bill of £115 for the fly-tipping incident which occurred from his van on August 1, 2018.

A concerned member of the public had spotted the fly-tip in progress on Holcombe Lane in the village and alerted Stroud District Council, which then used her witness statement to take the van's owner to court.

The case reached Cheltenham Magistrates Court on Monday, January 28 where Welsh confirmed it was his vehicle and took responsibility for the actions of the driver.

The defendant told the court that a member of his family borrowed the van at the time of the offence and that the van has since been sent to scrap.

“We are very grateful to the member of the public who alerted us to this offence, and gave us the evidence we needed to secure a prosecution,” said the council's head of community services, Mike Hammond.

“We clear more than 900 fly tips a year and we will prosecute where the evidence is strong enough to be brought before a court.”

To report a fly tip, visit stroud.gov.uk/report/report-fly-tipping-dumped-litter.