Environmental officers following up a complaint found tissue paper and waste water at the junction of Ferguson Road and Gray Road in Hendon, Sunderland.

CCTV footage showed a cream coach owned by the now-defunct Redby Coaches Ltd parked up in the area on August 22 last year.

Bosses at the firm were interviewed and identified the driver as Colin Dunn.

The dad-of-one admitted the offence at Sunderland Magistrates' Court.

Prosecutor Shirley Tracey said: "The environmental enforcement officer visited the site and saw water and white tissue paper which gave off a pungent odour.

"The opinion was formed that it was sewage."

Dunn, who was unrepresented, told magistrates he thought he was releasing the coach's water tank, but admitted that should have been done in the coach station.

"There was about 10 buses waiting to get out and I was very late for another job," he said. "I would not do that on purpose."

Magistrates told Dunn, of Honddu Court, Ingleby Barwick, Stockton: "You have admitted this offence, which is to your credit. But you would agree that it was a nuisance and a danger to people to do this."

He was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £647 costs.