The Bendigo Magistrates' Court put former Kralcopic Pty Ltd officer John Harrison on a 12 month diversion plan after the mining regulator brought legal action against him for a breach in Kangaroo Flat during events that led to the company's collapse.

He will also have to write a letter expressing his remorse, regulator Earth Resources Regulation said.

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Kralcopic was licensed to work multiple sites in the latter half of the 2010s.

That included at Kangaroo Flat, where it had access to a processing plant and mine tailings from the Swan Decline mine.

The mine was the city's last remaining portal into Bendigo's goldfields.

Earth Resources Regulator revoked Kralcopic's licences in 2019 over fears the company could not finance its mining activities and obligations around site rehabilitation.

It triggered a major crisis at Kralcopic, which unsuccessfully tried to reverse the decision through the courts before going into voluntary administration.

Receivers began winding the company up late last April.

Earth Resources alleged Kralcopic continued to operate the Kangaroo Flat site for a period after the mining licences were revoked.

On Sunday, Mr Harrison told the Bendigo Advertiser he believed Kralcopic and Earth Resources had reached an agreement to rehabilitate a small stockpile of sand by putting it through the processing plant.

He said that five days after the licences were revoked Earth Resources visited the site for a planned inspection and ordered the machinery shut down.

"In hindsight I should have confirmed in writing that an agreement had been reached with Earth Resources authorising the stockpile to be processed and rehabilitation to continue, and I consider that to be an error on my part and a regrettable misunderstanding," he said.

"At no time did I plead guilty to the alleged offence."

Mr Harrison said that infringement notices were issued to him, another person connected with the company and Kralcopic.

"I have been a professional engineer for fifty years," he said.

"Throughout my career I have always endeavoured to work diligently, ethically and honestly, not just for the benefit of my employers but also for the communities they served."

The company would normally have defended the matter in court, had it not been wound up, Mr Harrison said.

"I am in my mid-seventies, retired and not in a position to defend the matter without company support," he said.

Mr Harrison was grateful to the Magistrates' Court for allowing the diversion order.

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Earth Resources director Anthony Hurst said his agency would not tolerate any unauthorised mining activity.

"Operators are obliged to do the right thing and work within their approvals to manage risks to people, the environment and land that are associated with their activities," he said on Friday after the Magistrates' Court made its ruling.

"Public confidence in the mining sector and jobs it creates depends on operators acting appropriately and with the required approvals. We'll step in to protect communities and environments when these standards are breached."

The state government is in the early stages of rehabilitation planning and could choose to turn the land back into bushland.

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