Shona McConnell was accused of “sticking the boot into” Garry Pettigrew who is at the centre of allegations that medical waste was stored illegally.
Instead of what the SEPA official claimed, lawyers for Mr Pettigrew explained how waste would have remained in secure containers and would be taken to secure compounds at hospital sites, as NHS trusts had not paid for waste services.
Mr Pettigrew and Healthcare Environmental Services Limited face charges relating to the company’s Shotts and Dundee depots.
The firm had a contract to process all of Scotland’s NHS waste but went into liquidation in 2019 with the loss of more than 200 jobs.
Concerns
Ms McConnell, who works for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, told a trial in November 2022 of concerns over waste mounting at the Shotts facility (see letsrecycle.com story).
In her evidence at Hamilton Sheriff Court, she said managing director Mr Pettigrew had contacted SEPA to say “it was his intention to deposit waste back in hospital car parks”.
But she was recalled to the witness box on Friday 24 February when she admitted that the threat had not been made and the mistake was hers.
Ms McConnell said she contacted SEPA’s legal team after seeing newspaper headlines.
She told the court: “I re-read the email chain involving Mr Pettigrew and was concerned that I had given erroneous evidence.”
Advocate Thomas Ross KC, defending Mr Pettigrew, accused Ms McConnell of being a “liar” and “trashing” his client’s reputation.
He said: “You were trying to make things as bad as possible for Mr Pettigrew. You deliberately fed a line to the press to put the boot into him.
“There is absolutely no suggestion by Garry Pettigrew in the email exchange that anything was going to happen in relation to hospital car parks.”
Mr Ross referred to the claim being published by newspapers and letsrecycle.com.
He told the witness: “If my client had ambitions to return to the industry in which he’s worked for 30 years, I imagine such information in a trade newspaper might have an impact on him.”
Ms McConnell agreed.
The lawyer continued: “If letsrecycle.com has information that Garry Pettigrew threatened to dump waste within hospital car parks, that could be potentially damaging.”
Ms McConnell: “That’s the credible threat we were working to at the time. I said what I believed to be true.”
Mr Ross: “If his reputation has been trashed in The Times, Daily Record and letsrecycle because of something you said that was false, how do you sort that out?”
Ms McConnell: “He didn’t say it verbatim in the email, but I stand by what I said that it was a threat.”
Concern
In correspondence read out in court, Mr Pettigrew expressed concern that NHS trusts had not paid his company for removing waste and said it should be taken back as “a matter of urgency” because of storage issues at Shotts.
Mr Ross said his client had made it clear that waste would remain in secure containers and would be taken to secure compounds at hospital sites.
He pointed out that the health authorities had made contingency plans and waste was being transferred to England for incineration.
But Ms McConnell said the NHS wouldn’t have had the capacity to store waste returned by Mr Pettigrew’s firm.
She added: “I firmly believe there was a potential risk that waste would be deposited outwith secure areas in healthcare premises across Scotland.”
The trial was adjourned until May.
SEPA declined to comment to letsrecycle.com as the case is active.
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