DISGRACED crime boss Tommy Smith has been issued with a closure order for his scrap metal business, TH Smith & Sons, after Hyndburn Borough Council complained to the courts about activity on the site.

Smith, who is serving a lengthy jail sentence along with his wife, Mary, for their roles in a £1million stolen goods operation, was issued with the order, granted by Lancashire magistrates, on October 30.

The order states that use of the premises by a scrap metal dealer must be discontinued immediately; that the buying and selling of scrap metal on the premises shall cease immediately and that the carrying-on of business as a motor salvage operator on the premises shall cease with immediate effect.

Parliamentary candidate for Hyndburn, Graham Jones, said the closure order has come after a long legal saga that plagued neighbours with nuisance fires.

Mr Jones said: “I have met with Mr Smith on several occasions over the years pleading with him to stop the fires. He was very amicable.

“However, we were still receiving loads of reports of the fires continuing so further measures had to be taken.

“Hopefully this order will now stop the fires.”

In November 2017, Judge Ian Leeming QC at Preston Crown Court placed an order on the directors of T H Smith & Sons banning any blazing of materials there.

It followed a joint operation by police, the fire service, Hyndburn Council and the Environment Agency the previous September which temporarily closed the site, then operated by GHM Metals Recycling Ltd.

On October 5 2017 the Smiths got the closure order lifted pending appeal and a temporary ruling banning burning at the site was imposed instead.

At the November 1 hearing the police and their partners decided not to seek closure but obtained a six-month extension of a contempt of court order banning fires.

The most recent order also states that all scrap metal, any weighing equipment, and all signage advertising a scrap metal business operating on the site should be removed from the premises within 28 days.

Alongside this, the advertising hoarding advertising a scrap metal business operating on the site should be removed from the land at the junction of Alan Ramsbottom Way and Heys Lane in Great Harwood.

And additionally, all online material within the control of Smith and his wife advertising the business should be removed from the internet within 28 days.

Smith, his wife, and five others were jailed in August, after charges had been brought against the crime gang for conspiracy of theft and money laundering, as a result of three ‘long and complex’ police operations named Hewton, Runback and Redmill, carried out by police between 2016 and 2018.