I was fined £500 for putting a cigarette butt in a refuse sack | Money
I read your story about a man fined £500 for dropping a cigarette butt on the pavement.
I have been issued with a £500 fixed-penalty notice (FPN) by Haringey council for putting a butt in a refuse sack awaiting collection on the street.
The council claims that this counts as littering because the sack was not a public bin, even though it was filled with rubbish. It has threatened prosecution if I don’t pay.
I haven’t knowingly dropped litter since I was a child, and am outraged at this extortionate fine.
TW, London
In principle I support penalties for littering that despoils and disfigures our streets, but in your case it was not littering as most of us would understand it.
Moreover, the level of fines for first or ambiguous offences is concerning, as is the lack of transparency and accountability.
Councils are allowed to issue on-the-spot fines of up to £500 which, unlike penalty charge notices for parking breaches, can’t be appealed.
Recipients have to argue the toss in court when the council puts their case. They double if unpaid within 28 days and are issued, in many cases, by private enforcement firms that benefit from the revenue raised.
People can make an initial representation to the council if they feel the fine was issued incorrectly, which you did, but the council turned you down flat.
The government guidance on littering enforcement states that fines must be proportionate, and different councils have wildly differing interpretations of what that means.
Drop a fag end in one London street and you face an £80 fine, stray a yard into a different borough and it’s £500. A £500 penalty for using a bin bag does not strike me as “proportionate” when a warning about acceptable receptacles would have sufficed.
I put these points to Haringey, which replied that an offence is committed when “litter defaces a public place”. Which your butt clearly did not.
“As a public litter bin was not used, placing the cigarette end in the bags is otherwise depositing the litter,” it says.
Nowhere on the council website are these niceties explained.
However, after my questions, the council suddenly about-turned and decided that, after considering the evidence, which it had previously rejected, it would cancel the FPN.
Use a bin in future!
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