NHS waste firm boss banned from operating businesses

The former boss of a waste management company at the centre of an NHS clinical waste scandal has been banned from acting as a company director for nine years.

The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that Garry Pettigrew, managing director of Healthcare Environmental Services (HES), was unfit to run a company.

The case was brought by the Secretary of State for Business and Trade following an investigation into the collapse of HES, which was once one of the UK's largest contractors handling NHS clinical waste.

Lord Lake said Pettigrew had "acted in breach of his fiduciary duties as a director" by entering contracts while "bordering on insolvency".

HES went into liquidation in 2019 after losing NHS contracts in England and Scotland amid concerns about the stockpiling of healthcare waste at sites including Shotts and Dundee.

Around 400 jobs were lost when the Lanarkshire-based company collapsed.

The court found that Pettigrew's conduct as a director fell below the standards expected of someone running a company operating in a heavily regulated sector.

The case first came to public attention in 2018 when hundreds of tonnes of NHS clinical waste accumulated at HES sites.

Regulators said the company had repeatedly breached environmental permits by storing more waste than allowed and handling some waste inappropriately.

NHS trusts in England terminated contracts with HES over concerns about growing waste stockpiles.

The Environment Agency launched a criminal investigation, while Scotland's environmental regulator also took enforcement action.

Pettigrew consistently denied wrongdoing. He said the problem stemmed from a shortage of incineration capacity across the UK rather than failures by his company.

In 2023, after criminal proceedings against him were dropped, Pettigrew told BBC Scotland News HES had been made a "public scapegoat" and insisted the prosecution case had been "flawed from day one".

Those criminal proceedings, which related to allegations of illegally storing medical waste, including human body parts, were dropped following a review of the evidence.

Pettigrew subsequently said he intended to pursue legal action and claimed the case had damaged his reputation.

Evidence heard during that criminal case included claims that contractors clearing the Shotts facility found hundreds of tonnes of accumulated clinical waste, including anatomical material- including the carcass of a penguin which was believed to have come from Edinburgh Zoo.

The clean-up operation took months and cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The director disqualification proceedings were separate from the criminal case.

The Court of Session's decision means Pettigrew is barred from acting as a company director or being involved in the management of a company for the period specified by the court.