THE £433,500 Proceeds of Crime Act sum that a former company director was ordered to pay has been reduced after detailed negotiations.

Richard Baison, with co-director Peter Ogg, ran Saltney firm Lancashire Fuels 4U which, a court heard, had dumped more than 4,000 tonnes of rubbish in a manner likely to harm the environment or human health.

Baison applied for the order to be varied to take into account the interest of his wife Mary Baison in their home and in his pension policies.

Following a day of discussion between the prosecution and barristers for the couple, the order was reduced to £306,096 by Judge Huw Rees, sitting at Mold Crown Court.

He reduced the period he must serve in prison in default from four years to two-and-a-half years.

The judge congratulated prosecution barrister Christopher Stables, for Natural Resources Wales; David Ackerley, for Baison and Gus Iro, for Mrs Baison for arriving at an agreed order and said he appreciated the amount of work that had gone on “behind the scenes”.

An application to vary the order by Ogg – originally ordered to pay £694,481 – was adjourned.

The court heard that he was not represented by a barrister. His day-long hearing was fixed for September 21.

The prosecution said at the time of the prosecution against Baison and Ogg was that their actions led to at least two fires at the Saltney site which placed the health of local people at risk as well as causing environmental pollution to the surrounding area and nearby River Dee.

Ogg pleaded not guilty to charges of operating a waste facility without a permit and storing waste in a manner likely to cause harm to human health and pollution to the environment but he was found guilty by the jury of both offences in September 2015.

He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, suspended for 21 months and he was banned from being a company director for seven years.

Baison became unwell before giving evidence and the jury was discharged from reaching a verdict in his case but in September 2016 he pleaded guilty to the same two charges.

He was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment, suspended for 18 months and disqualified from acting as a director for seven years.