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Battle is joined over rebel's pile of rubble

Geoff Bean, a respected Yorkshire dairy farmer, last February bought a few lorryloads of builder's rubble to make repairs round his farm. He little realised that he was about to be drawn into a stand-off with officials of the Environment Agency which deserves to become a classic in the annals of the struggle between bureaucracy and the citizen.

Shortly after delivery of the rubble from a demolished garage in nearby Kirkbymoorside, Mr Bean had a letter from Steve Williamson, a "Special Enforcement Officer" of the agency in York, stating that, since his land did "not have the benefit of a Waste Management Licence", this depositing of "waste" was in clear breach of the law. Mr Bean must submit to a formal interview under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) to "establish" his "involvement in this unlicensed waste management operation".

Mr Williamson cannot have been prepared for Mr Bean's reply. "I am in receipt of your pompous and ill-informed letter," he wrote. "How dare you write to me in such terms, as if you were addressing a common criminal." The "waste" for which he had paid good money was about to be put to valuable use replacing the floor of a barn and resurfacing his farm tracks.

"Were I a one-legged homosexual Afghan refugee/terrorist living on the welfare state, you and your ilk would not dare write in such a manner for fear of having all the human rights lawyers in creation round your necks, but as you are speaking to an honest, hard-working and overstressed Englishman, you appear to think you can behave like all too many of the vast and ever-increasing army of totally useless, non-productive, arrogant and bloody-minded officialdom, who are now only too successfully doing more damage to this once great and free nation than was ever achieved by Adolf Hitler".

It seemed something of a culture-clash had arisen. Legally Mr Williamson had some right on his side, since the Waste Management Regulations 1994, implementing EC waste directive 91/156, introduced into UK law some very odd rules on waste disposal, such as the one which prohibits burning wood except on land where it was grown. Almost every communal Guy Fawkes Night bonfire is thus a flagrant breach of criminal law, a fact which Environment Agency officials conveniently manage to ignore.

Mr Williamson repeated that Mr Bean must submit to interview "under caution". Mr Bean agreed to spare some of his valuable time to assist Mr Williamson in his "futile attempt" to justify his "bureaucratic red tape", but reminded him that, since slavery in this country had been abolished, he would expect reimbursement at "£150 an hour or part thereof, plus VAT".

In further exchanges Mr Williamson eventually agreed to a preliminary interview not conducted under PACE rules. Mr Bean insisted on payment of £100 for each occasion on which he was forced to write another time-wasting letter. Finally, a week ago, agency officials arrived at the farm to take samples of the "waste material" for "independent testing and analysis", to "confirm its suitability or otherwise for the purposes you propose". By this time most of the rubble had already been put to good use around the farm. As to whether Mr Bean will face criminal charges for his breach of EU law, the agency cannot yet comment.