IF the bosses at chemical firm Nipa Laboratories are breathing a sigh of relief today at getting off the hook over two instances of seriously polluting the environment in East Lancashire, it is hardly surprising. For they seem to have been dealt with by a somewhat polluted form of justice - which has an unwholesome stink to it.

In one, they got off with a slap-on-the-wrist fine of just £20,000 at Burnley Crown Court after admitting six offences involved in the illicit and major release of poisonous acid gas from its plant at Oswaldtwistle - in the worst incident of its kind in Lancashire since new environmental controls were introduced in 1990.

And this was after magistrates, only able to impose fines of up to £120,000, decided to refer the case to a higher court with stronger sentencing powers.

But then the amazingly benign judge wrongly assumed that the firm had no previous convictions for pollution.

Yet he stuck by his incredibly light sentence even when informed by the firm's own barrister that this was not true and after hearing that the firm sent letters to residents claiming the release was not dangerous when they knew that this was not true either.

However, if the outcome of that case is as perplexing as it is disconcerting, much more worrying is the case against Nipa that did not proceed at all - by virtue of an alleged out-of-court deal between lawyers that has disturbing implications for the quality of British justice.

Nipa was due to appear before Blackburn magistrates four days ago to answer charges that, in 1995, the same Oswaldtwistle chemical plant had polluted the River Calder in an incident in which, it was alleged, fish in the river had been killed.

This case did not even go ahead after North West Water offered no evidence against the firm but successfully applied for costs - said to be in the region of six figures - a step which, it said, marked the fact that it was not wrong to prosecute in the first place. But if that suggests that there was a case to answer - and we believe there was - what are we to make of the accompanying allegations that the two companies' lawyers entered into an agreement entailing such a sum that stopped the case coming to court?

And what are we to make of the subsequent clamming up by NWW, supposedly acting on behalf of the public as the prosecuting authority that did not prosecute, but took the money and refused to explain?

Justice? Justice seen to be done? To us, it is diluted with a deluge of murky water.

This is outrageous.

We can only compliment Burnley MP Peter Pike for calling in the House of Commons for a top-level parliamentary inquiry into the alleged collusion between the two companies in this case.

If it is possible for the accused in a court of law to buy their way out of its scrutiny - which is what these allegations amount to - then justice in Britain is dangerously polluted.

Let this disturbing alleged deal between company lawyers be probed fully, openly and at once by the Department of Trade and Industry, by Environment Minister John Prescott and by the Lord Chancellor, for the stink is more foul than any Nipa could manufacture.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.