A Bristol businessman must pay £30,000 after being found guilty of having filthy toilets at his workplace.

City magistrates heard that the toilets at the former Strachan and Henshaw site in Foundry Lane, Speedwell, gave rise to a serious risk of infection to people using them.

Alan Dykes, 61, was found guilty of failing to keep the shared toilet block clean at the site he owns.

The court had heard that a council health and safety inspector checked the toilets on the site in October 2008 and found them to be filthy and dilapidated.

The inspector served an Improvement Notice on Mr Dykes requiring them to be regularly and frequently cleaned, and stating that this should be done by the end of October. When the inspector went back to check the toilet block, she found an unacceptable level of dirt, including: dried excrement on toilet pans and cubicle doors and walls; dirty floor; no toilet paper or soap and a broken cistern.

The inspector made several more visits over the next year, and on only one occasion was the toilet block clean and satisfactorily maintained.

The inspector said the toilets were generally in a filthy condition, giving rise to a serious risk of infection to people using them.

Mr Dykes pleaded not guilty to two charges of failure to comply with a notice requiring him to keep the site toilets clean and represented himself.

He said he originally had the toilets cleaned once a week but later increased that to two or three times a week, and in June 2009 he arranged for them to be cleaned every day. He blamed the condition of the toilets on vandalism.

Magistrates told Dykes it was his legal responsibility to maintain health and safety standards at the site.

They fined Mr Dykes a total of £30,000 with £3,500 costs and pointed out it would have been cheaper to have put a proper system of cleaning in place.