A Dorset farmer has been fined £2,500 after admitting causing pollution to enter a stream.

Mark Pearson, owner and senior partner at Hanford Farm, near Blandford, appeared before Taunton Magistrates Court on Wednesday (November 20) after previously pleading guilty to causing pollution to enter a freshwater stream.

He was fined £2,500, as well as being ordered to pay £4,007.20 costs, and a victim surcharge of £170.

The court heard how, in January 2019, an Environment Agency (EA) officer walking his dog noticed what appeared to be slurry in a stream and traced the run-off to a field at Hanford Farm and took photographs as evidence.

In a later interview, Pearson admitted slurry spreading at the farm had caused the pollution.

Magistrates were told there had been seven previous pollution incidents involving the farm since 2012 and, despite the need to have five months’ slurry storage facilities, there was only two months’ storage at the farm.

Before taking the case to court, Pearson agreed with the EA to an Enforcement Undertaking – an alternative penalty to formal court proceedings – and paid a contribution to the National Trust of £2,000.

However, no date was secured for the completion of a slurry lagoon – another condition of the Enforcement Undertaking – which led to the agency charging him with a criminal offence.

Chris Westcott, an EA agriculture team leader, said: “Enforcement Undertakings provide an opportunity for polluters to pay for environmental projects as an alternative to court proceedings.

“Though Mr Pearson was offered the opportunity to avoid a criminal conviction, he chose to ignore that, leading to this hearing.”