A CHARITY worker has lost his job after a dead man’s possessions were dumped at a Purbeck beauty spot.

Mathew Locker, 30, denied dumping the items himself but admitted he took the items and gave them to another man.

The dead man’s son, who asked not to be named, said the episode had caused “great distress.”

He added: “We had to identify my father’s possessions from photographs of his dumped belongings. He’d only been in the ground a week. It was devas-tating.”

Locker, of Tree Hamlets, Poole, pleaded guilty at Bournemouth Magistrates Court on Tuesday to an offence connected to the fly-tipping after the items were found at Lawson’s Clump in Wareham Forest last October.

He was fined £350 plus costs of £100 and a victim surcharge of £35.

The court heard Locker and a colleague visited a Blandford home on behalf of the British Heart Foundation to collect possessions of the deceased man.

The man’s family had asked for any saleable items to be donated to the heart charity, and Mr Locker agreed to dispose of the rest for £150.

However, he was not legally authorised to do this as he held no waste carrier’s licence. It was for this that Purbeck District Council brought the prosecution.

Under interview, Locker said he had met another man at Border Drive, Upton, and transferred the waste items to his van.

Locker admitted he did not ask what would happen to the items, nor did he check that this unidentified man held the correct Waste Transfer Note.

Purbeck District Council environment spokesman Cllr Nick Cake said: “This should be a lesson to all residents, there are unscrupulous people out there who will take away your rubbish and dump it illegally.

“If they cannot be found and the rubbish is traced back to you, it could be you who ends up in court.”

Locker, who lost his job collecting furniture for the BHF the day after the court case, told the Daily Echo: “I thought I was doing the right thing by not taking the rubbish to the tip myself. I should never have collected the rubbish in the first place.”

The former manager of the Sandford Inn said he had not known he needed a waste carrier's licence. He said he had paid a man to take the items away.

“I have never done it before and I will never do it again," he said.