A MAN convicted of running an illegal scrapyard in the garden of his semi-detached home tried to secretly relaunch his business, a court heard.

Jonathan Wright attempted to shake off surveillance teams tailing him on his late-night visits to a council-run household waste site, but was spotted using a torch while rummaging through skips.

Robert Stevenson, prosecuting,  said a team of contractors and Environment Agency staff spent two days clearing Jonathan Wright’s garden in Catterick, North Yorkshirem, of scrap metal in November 2011, after he was convicted of storing waste without a permit.

After the clearance, he signed an agency pledge that he would not store waste and that he understood it was posed a danger to residents.

Two months later, after receiving tip-offs from residents, Environment Agency investigators found he had again begun storing waste material at the Mowbray Road property.

Environment Agency officers told Teesside Crown Court that Mr Wright used the pavement outside the home he shares with his elderly mother as his breaker’s yard.

They said he flattened and ripped apart metal items on the street by using an angle grinder, a sledgehammer and even reversing over them in a van.

Mr Stevenson said that after setting up cameras outside the house, over a three-month period, investigators saw the 55-year-old repeatedly return late at night with a range of scrap items.

Investigator Cathy Bedworth said: “I would describe the activity as furtive scurrying. I thought he was aware that he might be under observation.”

She said Mr Wright sorted the scrap in his house and garden and used his flat-bed truck to store a mass of compressed metal, which he sold to an unknown merchant.

Fellow investigator Michael Robotham said on one occasion he followed Mr Wright to the Catterick Bridge Household Waste site, and he had “attempted some anti-surveillance manouveres” in his van around his estate.

Mr Robotham said after arriving at the site he found Mr Wright’s van parked near some skips.

He said: “He was wandering about with a torch in his hand. I could hear him rummaging around in one of the skips. It was the sound of someone foraging for metal.”

Mr Robotham said in April last year he saw Mr Wright’s van with its doors open in a layby in Catterick Lane on a rainy night, before discovering dry tyres there minutes later.

Mr Wright denies carrying out a waste operation without an environmental permit and fly-tipping.

The trial continues.