A woman has been ordered to pay more than £1,000 after dumping rubbish outside her Dewsbury home.

Fiona Towers ignored repeated attempts by Kirklees Council to get her to clear up the waste piling up in the garden of her Smallwood Gardens property.

She was prosecuted at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court for failing to comply with the council’s order to remove the unsightly rubbish.

David Stickley, prosecuting on behalf of the council, said that the authority first became aware of the problem on August 3 last year.

Kirklees Magistrates Court, Huddersfield.

Council tax records were checked and Towers was identified as the occupier of the property.

An enforcement officer sent an informal letter to her requesting her to clear the waste.

When the officer revisited the house on August 22 the waste was still there and there was no response from knocking on the door.

Towers was written to again on August 24 and given 14 days to dispose of it.

By September the rubbish hadn’t been touched and additional waste had been added to the pile, Mr Stickley said.

Towers was served with a Community Protection Notice which authorities can issue to prevent persistent anti-social behaviour such as littering.

She was found to be in breach of the notice on October 12 when the council official found that the waste was still in her garden.

Towers then made contact with the council and was granted a 14 day extension to clean up her land.

Mr Stickley told magistrates: “She asked for advice and the council arranged for its own cleansing department to come and give a quote for the waste to be removed.

“There was no further contact from the defendant and when the rubbish was still there in January the council had to clear it.

“It’s unfair for the taxpayers of Kirklees to have to pay for that so it’s appropriate to ask her to pay for that.”

Magistrates ordered Towers to pay the £120 cost incurred by the council in clearing her rubbish away.

Towers, who was not present at the Huddersfield hearing but convicted in her absence, also has to pay a £666 fine, £307 prosecution costs and £66 victim surcharge.