TWO brothers were yesterday given jail sentences following a 14-year row over failing to dig up waste from their golf course.

Only an appeal saved Michael, 75, right, and Ronald Wyatt, 69, left, being put into a cell after a judge lost patience with them and handed down prison sentences for contempt.

Michael and Ronald were jailed for four months and six months respectively, but were bailed pending an appeal against conviction.

The sentence was for contempt of court for repeatedly failing to comply with court orders demanding they remove the 150,000 cubic metres of waste from land next to Waterstock Golf Club.

The brothers blamed recent bad weather for the latest failure to remove the material.

The court orders related to a dispute over rubble from the construction of the nearby M40 service station dumped in the mid-1990s.

The brothers claimed the waste was used to extend the golf course, and they did not realise planning permission was needed.

But Oxfordshire County Council said the waste was tipped illegally and has pursued the case through the courts ever since.

The brothers, who run the course through their company Wyatt Brothers (Oxford) Ltd, previously had the prison terms suspended in May 2010.

But at the High Court yesterday, Deputy Judge John Leighton Williams QC ordered them to serve those sentences.

The judge said the brothers, whose company is registered at the golf course in Thame Road, were given several chances to remove the waste. But contractors had only so far dug a deep trench next to a bridleway on their land where they were unlikely to find waste, the court heard.

The brothers claimed in court that removal work had stopped in January and bad weather had prevented it from resuming.

Deputy Judge John Leighton Williams QC said: “Court orders are made to be obeyed. Otherwise there is no point in making them.

“The respondents have made no efforts, realistic or otherwise, to ensure substantial as opposed to token compliance with the order.

“They have gone their own way, no doubt hoping that one day they will obtain planning permission to enable them to develop, which might then give them permission to retain the waste.”

TIMELINE

Mid-1990s: Brothers Ronald and Michael Wyatt use waste construction material at Waterstock Golf Club
1998: The first injunction is issued to the brothers to clear the waste
1999: A public inquiry is held and the inspector rules against the brothers
2000: Ronald Wyatt says the soil was brought from the site of the M40 services at Wheatley to construct nine new holes
2005: High Court order tells the brothers to clear the waste
2007: Ronald Wyatt uses the Freedom of Information Act to discover Oxfordshire County Council has spent £187,000 on consultants to fight its case through the courts
2011: The brothers are ordered to comply with an earlier High Court order to search for the building rubble on the site