A JAILED pensioner whose overflowing rubbish dump spewed pollution into the air when it went up in smoke has failed in a bid for freedom.

Roy Hinchcliffe’s company, Forge Plant Limited, dumped more than double the permitted amount of waste at his company’s tip in Ravensthorpe before a huge blaze at the site cost firemen £850,000 to put out.

Hinchcliffe, 71, of Greenside Road, Mirfield, was jailed for two years at Leeds Crown Court in March after he admitted breaching environmental regulations.

And yesterday, two top judges at London’s Court of Appeal refused him an early release from prison branding his disregard for the rules “prolonged and cynical”.

Mr Justice Edwards-Stuart, sitting with Mr Justice Griffith Williams, told the court the charges related to sites at Scout Hill and Forge Lane, Dewsbury, and Heeley Road, Ossett.

Hinchcliffe’s company had a permit to store 700 tonnes of waste at the Scout Hill site.

But checks by inspectors revealed he and his staff had crammed at least twice that much into the area in 2009, the judge said.

The piles of waste, deemed “too high to measure” by the Environment Agency, overflowed onto the banks of the River Calder and went up in flames in February 2010.

The company was also dumping waste at the Forge Lane and Heeley Road sites, the latter of which also suffered a fire, the court heard.