A 70-year-old man who pleaded guilty to having an illegal dump on the side of Belfast's Black Mountain has admitted it was a blight on the landscape with the "potential" of causing pollution.
Hugh Corey had been due to go on trial at Belfast Crown Court for keeping controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution at his Tullyrush Road home in the Hannahstown area.
However, defence lawyer Declan Quinn asked that he be rearraigned and he pleaded guilty on the basis that the pollution involved the escape of gases from the dump site.
It was accepted it couldn't be determined that the local watercourse was polluted, although there was a"potential" of this occurring, as opposed to a "likelihood" of it happening.
It was also agreed that the dump at the home of the pensioner, who will be sentenced next month, "has had an impact on the visual amenity of the immediate surroundings".
Prosecution lawyer Gareth Purvis said inspectors from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency first visited the site in August 2011 and found both domestic and commerical waste and a number of skips. Further visits over the next two years found plastics, wood, brick and concrete.
Although the land was in the name of his wife, Corey accepted he had control and was responsible.
In February 2014 NIEA officers returned with police, a warrant and earth-moving machinery and dug eight trial pits.
These uncovered materials ranging from brick, plastics and concrete to carpets, electrics and textiles, with an estimate that more than 4.5 tonnes of waste had been dumped at the site.
