--- title: "Environment Agency prosecutions, 2013–2026" language: en canonical: https://dossiertwist.com/dossiers/southern-water-services-limited/environment-agency-prosecutions/ as_of: 2026-10-17 keywords: ["Southern Water Services Limited","Southern Water","02366670","water and wastewater company","South East England","Greensands Holdings","Macquarie Asset Management","Macquarie Super Core Infrastructure Fund","Asterion Industrial Partners","Sandstone Water Holdings","Ofwat","Environment Agency","Drinking Water Inspectorate","sewage discharges","2025 recapitalisation","SWS Scheme","Greensands (UK) Limited administration","ownership history","board of directors","AMP8 frameworks"] --- # Environment Agency prosecutions, 2013–2026 **Question.** For what has Southern Water been prosecuted by the Environment Agency, and with what results? **Answer.** When it sentenced Southern Water on 17 July 2026, the Crown Court at Canterbury recorded 174 previous convictions and treated that record as an exceptionally serious aggravating factor. In Environment Agency prosecutions the company was fined £200,000 in 2013 for Margate discharges, losing its appeal in 2014, and a record £90 million on 9 July 2021 after pleading guilty to 51 offences involving 6,971 illegal discharges between 2010 and 2015; it was also fined £2,000,000 for Margate discharges in December 2016, and it was acquitted of obstructing Agency officers in a prosecution arising from site visits in July 2016 in which five employees were convicted. In imposing fines of £7,127,083 in July 2026 for 13 offences at its Margate and Broadstairs pumping stations between 2019 and 2021, the court found the company's culpability deliberate on some counts, and in September 2026 a magistrates' court fined it £2.4 million for pollution around Faversham and Whitstable. It has pleaded guilty to River Test permit charges that await sentence, and the Agency reports further prosecutions pending. ## The Margate cases of 2013 and 2016 - Analysis: According to the Court of Appeal's judgment of 23 January 2014, Southern Water discovered in late December 2010, or at some time before 7 January 2011, that its sewage-pumping station at Margate, which discharged into the sea off the Kent coast, was faulty and was discharging untreated sewage, but it did not notify the Environment Agency until 17 January 2011. Three of the four transfer pumps had failed, further untreated discharges followed until July 2011, and the company did not disclose their full extent until the Agency required it to do so. On 2 July 2013, in a prosecution presented by the Agency, the company pleaded guilty at Canterbury Magistrates' Court to contravening conditions imposed under regulations 12(1), 38(1)(a) and 39(1) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2010. The case was committed to the Crown Court at Canterbury, where on 23 August 2013 Her Honour Judge Adele Williams fined the company £200,000. The company appealed against the fine, and the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on 23 January 2014. [src-085] - Analysis: The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, with Mr Justice Simon and Mr Justice Irwin ([2014] EWCA Crim 120). The company argued that the failure stemmed from a design fault that would have been very difficult to anticipate and that it had caused no damage. The court accepted that there was no evidence of actual harm, but held that the company had put no evidence before the sentencing judge to explain the design fault or the delay; a statement from the company secretary that no dividends had been distributed out of the profits the court had referred to was, it held, irrelevant. The court recorded that the company had 160 previous offences — some minor and represented by cautions, some of strict liability — which taken as a whole it called a record of persistent offending, said that the company's main board had apparently failed to appreciate the seriousness of the criminality involved, and said that it would not have interfered with a very substantially greater fine. It dismissed the appeal. [src-085] - Analysis: Discharges from the Margate pumping station led to a further fine. The Crown Court's sentencing remarks of 17 July 2026 record that in December 2016 Her Honour Judge Adele Williams, then Resident Judge at Canterbury, who had sentenced the company for the offences at the site in August 2013, fined Southern Water £2,000,000 for discharges from the Margate pumping station, and that the company had given the court assurances in 2016 about a 24/7 staff presence at the site. [src-105] ## The 2016 obstruction case - Analysis: During an Environment Agency investigation into potential breaches by Southern Water of its obligations under the Environment Act 1995, Agency officers visited several of the company's wastewater treatment works between 11 and 13 July 2016. Five employees of the company were then prosecuted and convicted at Folkestone Magistrates' Court of intentionally obstructing Agency officers, contrary to section 110(1) of the Act. The company itself was also charged with obstruction but was acquitted: the district judge found that the prosecution had not proved the company criminally liable for its employees' actions. According to the High Court's later judgment, several of the employees told the officers that they were acting on instructions — from the company's legal team or solicitor, or from a manager — in refusing to let records be removed or the officers enter a site. On appeal the High Court quashed the convictions of two of the five employees on 29 January 2019 and upheld those of the other three. [src-086] - Analysis: The five employees appealed by case stated against the Agency. On 29 January 2019 the High Court (Administrative Court; Lord Justice Leggatt and Mr Justice Holgate; [2019] EWHC 443 (Admin)) rejected their argument that the officers' powers to enter premises and to remove records for copying could be exercised only with the occupier's consent. The district judge had found that two of the employees were relaying the company's position on the instructions of its lawyer or solicitor. The High Court quashed their convictions because the district judge had made no specific finding that either had committed an offence by a specific act or omission; it held that there was no finding that either had gone beyond reporting the company's position to obstructing the officers. It dismissed the appeals of the other three, whose convictions were upheld. [src-086] ## The 2021 sentence - Analysis: On 9 July 2021, in an Environment Agency prosecution at Canterbury Crown Court, Mr Justice Johnson fined Southern Water a record £90 million after it pleaded guilty to 51 offences committed between 2010 and 2015. The Agency's release of 2021 places the offences at 16 wastewater treatment works and one storm overflow in Kent, Hampshire and Sussex; the sentencing remarks of July 2026 describe them as committed across 17 sites in Kent. The company admitted causing 6,971 illegal discharges lasting 61,704 hours in total. The Agency described the case as the largest criminal investigation in its 25-year history and said that the fine would be paid out of company operating profits. Its release of 17 July 2026 adds that three years after the 2021 fine Southern Water received a penalty of £330,000 for pollution in a lake near Southampton; the release gives no court, date or offence details for that penalty. [src-067] [src-105] [src-056] - Analysis: In the case that ended with the £90 million fine of 9 July 2021, the court, according to the Environment Agency, found that the offences were caused by deliberate failings causing major (Category 1) harm, and was told that Southern Water had deliberately presented a misleading picture of compliance to the Agency. As quoted in the Divisional Court's judgment of 22 July 2026, Mr Justice Johnson said in sentencing that he was sure each of counts 1 to 50 had been committed deliberately, through an intentional breach of, or flagrant disregard for, the law by the company's board of directors and/or a deliberate failure by the board to put in place and enforce adequate systems. The 2021 sentencing remarks themselves are not in the record, and the findings concern the board as a body: the 2026 judgment notes that the remarks did not identify the company's then chief executive as complicit. The company pleaded guilty. Before sentencing, the 2020–21 annual report of its then parent group stated that Southern Water was committed to working with the Agency to ensure a swift conclusion to the case and noted that the levels of culpability and environmental harm were disputed; as quoted in the 2026 judgment, its then chairman's evidence at sentencing repeatedly emphasised that there had been a complete culture change in the company. [src-067] [src-055] [src-091] ## Margate and Broadstairs, 2019–2021 - Analysis: The Environment Agency charged Southern Water with 13 offences arising from unpermitted discharges of untreated sewage and permit breaches at its Margate and Broadstairs wastewater pumping stations in Kent between 2019 and 2021. The Agency's release states that all 13 offences were contrary to regulations 12(1)(b) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016; the sentencing remarks describe counts 1 to 9 as discharge offences under regulation 12(1) read with regulation 38(1)(a) of the 2016 Regulations and counts 10 to 13 as permit-condition offences under regulation 38(2), citing the 2010 Regulations. The company pleaded guilty at Medway Magistrates' Court on 22 April 2025, on a written basis of plea accepted by the Agency, and District Judge Stephen Leake committed the case to the Crown Court for sentence. It was sentenced at the Crown Court at Canterbury on 17 July 2026. [src-056] [src-105] - Analysis: According to the Environment Agency, the offending for which the company was fined £7,127,083 on 17 July 2026 included a discharge of around 10 million litres of sewage over almost 24 hours in July 2019, reported to the Agency only the next day; at least 16 million litres released from Margate over two days around the August 2020 bank holiday, with a further 1.6 to 3.2 million litres from Broadstairs that the company reported only weeks later; a control failure at Broadstairs in February 2021; simultaneous failures in June 2021, after which Thanet District Council closed 11 beaches; and a power shutdown at Broadstairs in October 2021, after which 10 beaches were closed. The company also admitted 35 further illegal discharges between 2019 and 2021 and that a network pump had been out of action for more than a year. These volumes and timings are the Agency's figures from its press release; the sentencing remarks give per-count volumes in cubic metres and different reporting intervals for some incidents. The company, which pleaded guilty on an agreed basis of plea, argued at sentencing that all its failings were negligent, and said that the unscreened Broadstairs discharge of August 2020 occurred over half a kilometre out to sea and was diluted by rainfall. [src-056] [src-105] - Analysis: The company described the case in its own disclosures before sentence. Its supplementary prospectus of 30 July 2025 stated that at a court appointment on 22 April 2025 it had pleaded guilty to the 13 charges, "although two of these remain in dispute" — the prospectus does not say which two — and that it had recognised a provision of £2.0 million for possible fines and legal costs. Its annual report for the year ended 31 March 2026 states that it pleaded guilty to the charges, that sentencing was expected later in July 2026 and that the provision was £4.5 million, and adds that other Environment Agency prosecutions over historic events were due to be progressed by the courts later in the year. The company said that the provisions were not intended to indicate or predict any particular level of fine, and in both disclosures it described the levels of culpability and environmental harm as disputed. On 17 July 2026 the Crown Court fined it £7,127,083, with £149,000 prosecution costs and a £181 surcharge. [src-017] [src-059] [src-105] ## The July 2026 sentence - Analysis: On 17 July 2026, in Environment Agency v Southern Water at the Crown Court at Canterbury, Mr Justice Johnson sentenced the company for the 13 Margate and Broadstairs offences to fines totalling £7,127,083, imposed on counts 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 and 13 with no separate penalty on the others, prosecution costs of £149,000 and a statutory (victim) surcharge of £181. He gave full one-third credit for the guilty pleas, stating that after a trial he would have imposed £10,690,625. Costs and surcharge were due by 14 August 2026, half of the fine (£3,563,541) by 15 January 2027 and the balance (£3,563,542) by 16 July 2027. No compensation or confiscation order was made. Paragraph 21.1 of the remarks gives the fine on count 1 as £604,197, while the attached calculation table gives £604,167; the stated total of £7,127,083 matches the table. [src-105] [src-056] - Analysis: In his sentencing remarks of 17 July 2026, which imposed the fines of £7,127,083, Mr Justice Johnson found the company's culpability deliberate on counts 1, 5 and 10, treating count 6 together with count 5. A 24/7 staff presence had been put in place at Margate as a result of the incidents behind the earlier prosecution, and the company withdrew that cover in 2018 with no documented decision showing that sufficient measures were in place and no appropriate risk assessment. He assessed the other counts as negligent, and the harm on counts 5 and 6 — discharges of 16 and 17 June 2021, after which 11 bathing sites were closed between 17 and 23 June 2021 — and on count 7 as category 1. These findings were made to the criminal standard on the agreed basis of plea; the Environment Agency had argued for deliberate culpability on counts 1, 5, 6 and 10 and recklessness on count 7. The company argued that all its failings were negligent. It said that it withdrew the 24/7 cover in 2018 because there had been a major investment programme and reliability and resilience had increased, and denied that this was a cost-saving measure. The court accepted its submission that the harm on counts 1 and 10 fell within category 3. [src-105] - Analysis: The judge treated the company's record as an exceptionally serious aggravating factor. His remarks record that Southern Water had 174 previous convictions, had been convicted every year from 1999 to 2016 and as recently as April 2026, and that after its August 2013 fine of £200,000 for Margate discharges, which it appealed unsuccessfully, it was convicted on 13 further occasions, excluding the present case, including the £2,000,000 fine for Margate discharges in December 2016 and the £90,000,000 fine of July 2021. The figure of 174 previous convictions is the 2026 court's; the Court of Appeal had recorded 160 previous offences in January 2014. In mitigation, the remarks record that, unlike in 2021, Southern Water fully cooperated with the Agency's investigation, and that Lawrence Gosden, its Chief Executive Officer, apologised to the court, the Agency, customers and the communities of Thanet. The judge accepted the apology as genuine and indicative of remorse, and took account of remedial works and the reinstatement of a 24/7 staffing model at Margate and Broadstairs. [src-105] [src-085] ## Later and pending cases - Analysis: On 7 April 2026 Southern Water pleaded guilty at Medway Magistrates' Court to all five charges brought by the Environment Agency under regulations 12(1)(b) and 38(1)(a) of the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 for pollution in north Kent: sewage effluent discharged into Faversham Creek between 4 and 8 March 2020; diesel discharged to coastal waters at Whitstable on or before 31 July 2019; and untreated sewage discharged to coastal waters between 5 March and 3 October 2020, on 6 August 2021, when around 70 dead fish were found, and between 31 July and 23 August 2021. The Agency announced on 22 September 2026 that District Judge Stephen Leake, sitting at Bromley Magistrates' Court, had fined the company £2.4 million (given in the release as £2,416.666.67) for this pollution and ordered it to pay £69,894.04 in costs and a victim surcharge of £190; a further pollution incident at Faversham in December 2019 was taken into account. The Agency called it its second successful prosecution of the company in 2026. [src-072] [src-075] - Analysis: On 14 July 2026 Southern Water pleaded guilty at Medway Magistrates' Court to two Environment Agency charges under regulation 38(2) of the 2016 Regulations: on 13 March 2023 the discharge from its Fullerton wastewater treatment works into the River Test in Hampshire exceeded its permit limits of 50 mg/l of suspended solids and 8,000 micrograms per litre of total iron. Two further charges are to be taken into consideration at sentencing. According to the Agency, Southern Water noted after the incident that it had missed at least two opportunities to alert the Agency, and said it recognised that its procedure for raising concerns internally and with the Agency about effluent quality had failed before and on the day of the incident. The Agency said on 15 July 2026 that a sentencing date was to be set; the record contains no sentence. [src-076] - Analysis: According to its release of 17 July 2026, the Environment Agency was also prosecuting Southern Water for other pollution incidents in Kent in 2019–2021, including at Faversham and Whitstable, and in Hampshire in 2023; its release of 22 September 2026 said the company was due to appear in court in December 2026 over unrelated pollution incidents at Herne Bay, where 49 homes and businesses were flooded with sewage, near Canterbury in Kent and near Andover in Hampshire. These are pending proceedings: the record contains no charges, pleas or outcomes for the Herne Bay, Canterbury and Andover incidents. The Faversham and Whitstable case was sentenced in September 2026; the record contains no outcome for the other cases, and the releases do not say whether the Hampshire 2023 case is the River Test (Fullerton) prosecution. The record contains no response from the company on these cases. The Agency's separate prosecutions announced on 22 July 2026 — of four former employees for conspiracy to defraud, and of the company for permit offences linked to the same alleged conduct, the implementing of artificial no-flow events at wastewater treatment works between 2012 and 2017 to manipulate the operator self-monitoring compliance tests — are described on the page on the flow-monitoring case; these are charges, not findings, and no plea or trial is recorded. Mr Wright denies any wrongdoing, according to his solicitor; the company had said before the charges that it was assisting the investigation and could not yet predict how it would plead; and on 11 September 2026 the case was sent to Maidstone Crown Court, where the defendants were due to appear on 9 October 2026. [src-056] [src-075] [src-054] [src-055] [src-074] [src-059] - Analysis: The Agency has also published inspection figures. According to its release of July 2026, its inspections that year included over 730 checks of Southern Water sites, 68% of which were compliant with their permits, and it gave the company over 400 improvement actions; in September 2026 an Agency manager said it had made 700 inspections of the company's sites in the past year, detailing 400 improvements needed. The two releases give slightly different inspection counts for overlapping periods, and the record contains no response from the company to these figures. [src-076] [src-075] ## Sources - [src-085] Southern Water Services Ltd, R v [2014] EWCA Crim 120, The National Archives, Find Case Law, 2014-01-23 - [src-105] Environment Agency v Southern Water Services Limited: sentencing remarks, Crown Court at Canterbury, Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 2026-07-17 - [src-086] Millmore & Ors v Environment Agency [2019] EWHC 443 (Admin), The National Archives, Find Case Law, 2019-01-29 - [src-067] Environment Agency: Record £90m fine for Southern Water following EA prosecution, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2021-07-09 - [src-056] Environment Agency: Southern Water fined £7.1 million for sewage pollution, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2026-07-17 - [src-055] Matthew Wright, R (on the application of) v Medway Magistrates' Court [2026] EWHC 1842 (Admin), The National Archives, Find Case Law, 2026-07-22 - [src-091] Company statement source · src-091 - [src-017] Company statement source · src-017 - [src-059] Company statement source · src-059 - [src-072] Environment Agency: Southern Water admits sea pollution, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2026-04-27 - [src-075] Environment Agency: Southern Water fined £2.4m for Kent pollution, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2026-09-22 - [src-076] Environment Agency: Southern Water pleads guilty to River Test pollution, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2026-07-15 - [src-054] Environment Agency: EA commences criminal proceedings against Southern Water, Environment Agency (GOV.UK), 2026-07-22 - [src-074] Media source · src-074