Man fined £500 for ‘fly-tipping' after ‘wind blew cardboard out of bin'
Council officials fined a man £500 for fly-tipping after the wind blew a cardboard box out of his bin.
Martin Fielder, 47, was handed a fixed penalty notice (FPN) and threatened with a criminal record if he did not pay the fine.
However when Mr Fielder, who became the full-time carer of his two children after giving up his job when his wife died, threatened to go to court, the fine was reduced to £100.
Mr Fielder, from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, said high winds and foxes pushing bins over could have caused the cardboard to get out.
He had previously been told he could face up to 12 months in prison if he refused to pay District Enforcement – a private enforcement agency employed by Welwyn Hatfield borough council.
'State of anxiety'
'The FPN stated that I was in breach of section 33 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 – or the offence of fly-tipping – because a box with my address on had been found 80 metres from my house,' Mr Fielder told The Guardian newspaper.
'The letter stated that if the fine was not paid within 28 days the matter would be referred to the magistrates' court, where I could go to prison for up to 12 months or receive a bigger fine, or both.'
He described the attempted prosecution as 'extortion', adding that no one would call one loose bit of rubbish fly-tipping.
The former IT specialist, whose wife died six years ago of a terminal illness, said he had been in a 'state of anxiety' during his interactions with the enforcement agency and council.
He suggested to District Enforcement that the cardboard envelope may have ended up on the grass from strong winds the previous night.
'Three strong reasons'
Mr Fielder also sent pictures of foxes by his knocked-over bins and evidence of parcels going missing as evidence, which they ignored.
'I gave them three strong reasons why they couldn't assume I had done anything wrong,' he said.
The company changed the fine to a £100 littering offence, after he told District Enforcement he planned to take them to court.
'It feels very much like they have a standard process of issuing a big fine, and if you push back, they issue a smaller one instead,' he continued.
'It's tempting to pay because going to court risks an increased fine and a criminal record, but I don't want to capitulate. I haven't done anything wrong.'
'Stretching the law'
Josie Appleton, the convener of the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties group, said: 'These companies are stretching the law beyond any reasonable interpretation, to enable the issuing of penalties.'
A spokesman for Welwyn Hatfield borough council told The Guardian: ' District Enforcement officers are trained to carry out enforcement in line with legal standards and the council's enforcement policy.
'Measures are in place to ensure a thorough review of disputed penalties. If a dispute remains unresolved, we will carefully assess the evidence before determining any further enforcement action.'
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The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘He stole a piece of our souls': Christian music star Michael Tait accused of sexual assault by three men
The Christian music legend Michael Tait, whose hit song God's Not Dead became an anthem for Donald Trump's Maga movement, has been accused of sexually assaulting three men, two who believed they were drugged by the rock star in the early 2000s, according to a months-long Guardian investigation. Four other men have alleged that Tait, a founding member of DC Talk and later a frontman for the Newsboys, engaged in inappropriate behavior such as unwatched touching and sexual advances. The Guardian is publishing these allegations days after Tait posted an extraordinary confession on his Instagram account, admitting that for 20 years he had been 'leading a double life', abusing alcohol and cocaine, 'and, at times, touched men in an unwanted sensual way', according to his statement. The statement appears to be a response to a separate report published earlier this month by the Christian media outlet, The Roys Report, which also investigated Tait and revealed similar allegations of drug use and sexual assault against young, male musicians. In the Instagram statement, Tait wrote: 'I am ashamed of my life choices and actions and make no excuses for them. I will simply call it what God calls it – sin.' He added: 'While I might dispute certain details in the accusations against me, I do not dispute the substance of them.' 'Even before this recent news became public, I had started on a path to health, healing, and wholeness … I accept the consequences of my sin and am committed to continuing the hard work of repentance and healing – work [which] I will do quietly and privately, away from the stage and the spotlight.' The allegations about Tait's behavior revealed today starkly contrast the public image that Tait cultivated for nearly four decades. The 59-year-old native of Washington DC, sold 18m albums, containing songs that often encouraged young Christians to stay sober, abstinent and straight. But sources who spoke to the Guardian claimed Tait's alleged drug use and alleged abusive behavior were the 'biggest open secret in Christian music'. The Guardian has interviewed 25 people in the Christian music industry, most of whom say they had prior knowledge of allegations that Tait had engaged in abusive behavior. The men who have come forward and shared their alleged experiences – two agreeing to go on the record with their names, while the rest spoke on the condition of anonymity – were aged 13 to 29 at the time of their alleged experiences. All grew up in evangelical churches where Tait's music was the premier soundtrack of their youth groups, summer camps and mission trips. Having taken the message of Tait's songs to heart, they were naive about sex and drugs throughout their youth. All were starstruck when meeting their childhood hero, but quickly saw their image of him as a role model of Christian piety dissolve, as they were taken on a bumpy ride of rock and roll debauchery. Shawn Davis, who was a lifelong fan and troubled youth who had immersed himself in Christian music, claims Tait pushed him to consume alcohol and cocaine on multiple occasions. He also says he believes Tait once secretly drugged him and then molested him in 2003, while he was still a minor. 'This man destroyed my life,' Davis now claims. Gabriel (not his real name) also claims Tait pushed him to consume alcohol and cocaine before asking to join him in a hot-tub in 2003, where he claims Tait repeatedly groped his penis while attempting to kiss him. 'To this day I jump whenever someone touches me unexpectedly,' Gabriel says. 'When something like that happens to you, you feel like the worst person, you feel dirty, worthless. It's heartbreaking to think someone you look up to could do something like that.' Adam (not his real name) claims he believes he was drugged by the singer while he was visiting Tait's home in Nashville, and later woke up to find Tait allegedly molesting him. 'This person has stolen a little piece of our souls,' he says. Tait did not respond to the Guardian's questions about the allegations contained in this report. Over the last 38 years, Tait has emerged as one of the most iconic names in Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). The genre and industry often exists in its own commercial and cultural ecosystem – yet mimics popular trends of mainstream music – creating multi-platinum superstars that are marketed to teens (and their parents) as wholesome alternatives to the 'sinful lifestyles' of mainstream rock stars. Tait was one-third of the rap-rock group, DC Talk, which formed in 1987 while its members were attending the evangelical Liberty University, whose founder, Jerry Falwell, launched the Moral Majority, the political organization that first galvanized evangelical voters around the Republican party in 1980, forever changing the American political landscape. Falwell was a mentor to young Tait – who he referred to as 'my white daddy' – and helped boost DC Talk to stardom. Blending MTV aesthetics with Christian right talking points, DC Talk instructed generations of teens to stand against the liberalism of the Clinton era, namely abortion rights and sex education. Songs like I Don't Want It (a rebuttal to George Michael's I Want Your Sex), That Kind Of Girl, and The Children Can Live, shaped the moral landscape of a generation of young evangelicals, mandating sexual purity until marriage. 'They used the sounds often associated with teen sexuality – like hip-hop, rock and pop music – to combat teen sexuality and adolescent desire,' says Leah Payne, author of the book God Gave Rock and Roll To You, an academic critique of CCM history. 'In 1994 the True Love Waits organization asked DC Talk to perform at their concert on the National Mall promoting virginity among young evangelicals, which resulted in the signing of 200,000 chastity pledges by the teenage fans.' In 1995, their Nirvana-flavored smash hit, Jesus Freak, championed being a social outcast for the Lord's sake; a book companion to the album celebrated the violent histories of Christian martyrs around the world, encouraging young people to follow in their footsteps. The fight for Christian nationalism was also a premier theme of DC Talk's music – as well as the book Under God, co-authored by Tait – claiming the US is suffering a collapse of moral values because of the secularization of government and public schools. This was underscored with frightening urgency by their songs warning of the coming rapture. As recently as 2021, Tait warned: 'I believe we are living in the last days [before the rapture].' The CCM industry has been primarily headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, where Tait and most of his colleagues work and live. While it is not affiliated with the country music scene of Nashville, it typically shares the same conservative politics. While DC Talk addressed racism in several songs – with Tait as the sole Black man performing with two white guys (one of whom rapped) – their narrative typically placed racism as an unfortunate touchstone of the past that the US must repent for, but never as a contemporary, systemic problem. DC Talk went on a hiatus in 2000 and for nearly a decade Tait performed as a solo artist until he became the frontman of the legendary CCM supergroup, Newsboys. In 2011, their rock song, God's Not Dead, became a rallying cry for disaffected evangelicals in the Obama-era. In 2014, Tait and Newsboys appeared in God's Not Dead, a movie centered around the fictional story of an atheist college professor who threatens to fail his students if they refuse to sign a form declaring 'God Is Dead.' Tait would make an appearance in four subsequent sequels, becoming a recognizable face in the fight against perceived anti-Christian discrimination, a central theme of Donald Trump's presidential campaigns. Tait endorsed Ted Cruz in 2016, but shifted his allegiance to Trump after the Florida pastor Paula White – chair of the evangelical advisory board for Trump's 2016 campaign and leader of the White House Faith office in 2024 – invited him to pray over Trump before a Florida campaign stop. Tait soon became a key bridge between the candidate and white evangelical voters. Newsboys performed for Trump at the White House in 2019, and the following year Tait sang at evangelical 'Let Us Worship' events, which were centered around the false claim that President Joe Biden was using Covid lockdowns to repress church attendance in America. 'I love you, I support you, and I'm one of the growing number of African Americans who love you,' Tait said in a 2019 video praising Trump's efforts at prison reform, before adding 'I'm looking forward to hanging out, and eating some Big Macs!' On 5 January 2021, Newsboys' God's Not Dead was sung in unison by the 'Jericho March' at the US Capitol, the event that preceded the violent insurrection on the US Capitol the following day. The Guardian's investigation has revealed an alleged pattern of manipulative behavior by Tait. Most of the alleged incidents described in this article are alleged to have occurred between 2001 and 2009. Young and sometimes naive male musicians say they believe they were targeted by the star, with Tait allegedly dangling the possibility of career or artistic opportunities before them and then cutting off all contact once it became clear that sex was off the table. According to four people who were interviewed, some of them on the condition of anonymity, Tait would allegedly invite them to parties at his house in Nashville, encouraging them to drink alcohol and use drugs before making sexual advances. Two of the men who spoke to the Guardian claim they believe they were secretly drugged, which left them floating in and out of consciousness, unable to consent to sexual acts. They claim Tait assaulted them by touching them sexually without their permission. Three others claim they awkwardly rebuffed his advances and left. 'I wore out my Jesus Freak CD as a kid, and so when I met him I was starstruck,' recalls Gabriel, who was 19 when he was introduced to 38-year-old Tait in 2004. 'And then he started calling me to hang out, it was just crazy.' Gabriel was ambitious to become a CCM musician, and now his childhood hero was inviting him out to bars, buying him drinks even though he was underage and taking him to parties at his home in Nashville. Tait often mentioned the possibility of them jamming together, but that never materialized. Gabriel felt a little uncomfortable at first when Tait would rub a hand on his shoulder and constantly hug him, but attributed the feeling to the fact that he had been abused a few years earlier by a serial child molester. In fact, Gabriel was testifying in a court case about that incident during this same time, an emotionally taxing experience that he confided in Tait about. 'He was very sympathetic,' Gabriel says, 'and then he betrayed that trust'. Tait started inviting Gabriel over alone, when the house was empty. When Tait introduced him to cocaine, 'it was a huge shock,' Gabriel says, partially because he had no experience with drugs, and because it was being served by the man whose music informed his moral universe. 'But I was too excited to be there, and didn't want to screw up this opportunity.' The two used cocaine together a number of times over the next few weeks. One night, while they both were high on the drug, along with a couple of Vodka and Red Bulls, Tait proposed they jump in the hot tub. It was there that Tait unexpectedly 'grabbed my crotch and tried to kiss me at the same time,' Gabriel claims. 'It wasn't subtle, and it was out of nowhere. I asked him 'what the hell is going on?' He said he was just joking, but then he did it again. I jumped out of the pool and drove home, which I shouldn't have done because I was more intoxicated than I've ever been, but that's how scared I was.' Gabriel didn't tell anyone for 15 years, when he confided about it to the same friend who had introduced him to Tait, Shawn Davis. Shocked, Davis told him he had his own bad experience. Davis says he was 16 when he met 37-year-old Tait in 2003 at a Nashville party that was loaded with mainstream celebrities. But Davis's attention remained only on his childhood idol, Michael Tait. A mutual friend introduced them, and Tait took down his number, calling Davis to hang out a few days later. 'DC Talk were my heroes in a lot of ways,' Davis recalls. 'They were Christians, but they rocked out, and I thought that was so cool.' Looking back, both Davis and Gabriel realized that while they spent time together with Tait at bars and parties, at some point they were only invited to his house separately and alone, which began when he allegedly introduced them to cocaine. According to Davis's claims, months passed with Davis and Tait hitting the Nashville bars (Tait was able to get Davis, a teenager, drinks), before going back to Tait's house to smoke weed and cigarettes, snort coke along with the opioid Lortab, which Tait would crush into a powder. Like Gabriel, Davis confided to Tait that he had been molested when he was eight years old. 'Tait made me feel like, and seem like, he was my only friend.' Davis says that Tait always mixed their drinks, and claims he often felt pressured to drink heavily. One night he recalls the drink tasting strange, and Tait insisting he finish it. 'Suddenly, I felt super sick, dizzy, nauseous, going in and out of consciousness,' he says. 'I woke up in the closet, and he had my pants down, and was giving me a blowjob. I pushed him off as best as I was able in that state, but he pushed me down, and then I punched him twice and left.' Davis said he believed he was drugged by Tait. He was 17 at the time. In the months that followed, Davis claims, Tait aggressively pursued a reconciliation. 'He was relentlessly love bombing me, trying to talk his way back in the door,' alleges Davis. 'He apologized to me for what happened, but never got into specifics, it was more of a broad statement.' Davis was attempting to get a CCM label off the ground, and forgave Tait's behavior with the hope that he would help him get a foothold in the industry. He claims that 'Tait had convinced me that what happened that night was my fault, he was very manipulative. And I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.' All of this came to a head one night in 2012, when Davis was in Tait's kitchen, and Tait texted him from his bedroom, sending him a picture of what Tait described as $5,000 in cash. 'He said something to the effect of 'this could be yours if you let me suck you off and cum in your ass,' Davis claims. After that, Davis called his mother and asked her to quickly come pick him up; Davis snuck out quietly without alerting Tait. On the drive home, Davis says he told her everything he had allegedly experienced with Tait. He and Tait never spoke again. Davis's mother, and a friend he had confided in at the time, confirmed the details reported in this story. Davis has had one run-in with the law. When he was a teenager he stole his mother's debit card to rent a limo for prom. He got probation but was then found guilty of violating his probation in connection to drug use, which occurred at a time when he was friends with Tait. He served about five months in prison. He is now married, has a 12-year-old son and owns his own construction company in Nashville. Both Davis and Gabriel express regret today for not speaking up sooner, believing they could have prevented other people from suffering the same experience. At the time, they each thought their experiences were isolated incidents. Another young man who got to know Tait, Abraham (not his real name) claims Tait rubbed his thigh and caressed his ear minutes after meeting for lunch in 2006. Abraham was a 22-year-old musician in an up and coming band. 'He said 'at Liberty University, we weren't allowed to let our hair touch our ears,' and then he brushed my hair back with his hand, which was weird,' Abraham recalled. Zach (not his real name) was a 29-year-old aspiring DJ with little experience when, he claims, Tait invited him to his house after they met in a Nashville dance club in the summer of 2008. 'He was doing a solo tour and said: 'What we need is a DJ who can come on the road with us,'' Zach alleges. 'And I asked: 'That would be so cool! What would I need to do?' And he said: 'You need to hang out, come around [my house] a lot.'' But when Zach arrived at his house, and was brought to Tait's studio, he noticed the only furniture in the room was a bed, and Tait kept encouraging Zach to sit close to him. 'I was a virgin until I was 37,' Zach recalls. 'And I'd always thought to myself 'Michael Tait's been single his whole life, and if he can hold out so can I.'' Feeling uncomfortable, Zach made up an excuse to leave early. Afterward, he sent Tait several messages to follow up on the DJ opportunity, but Tait never replied. Adam (not his real name) was another young and ambitious musician in a Christian rock band that was slowly gaining steam in 2004 when he met Tait in Nashville. The 22-year-old was ecstatic when Tait texted him a few days later, inviting him out for some bar hopping. 'Tait was like the Christian Elvis, the GOAT,' Adam recalls. Adam was dropped off at the bar to meet Tait by some friends, one of whom said 'don't get molested!' as he was exiting the car, a comment he found strange but dismissed. A wild night out concluded at Tait's home, where Adam was awed by 'his trophy room, where he keeps all his Dove Awards, Grammys and other accolades'. At one point they needed to buy more booze, and Tait showed him his collection of cars in the garage, telling him to 'pick one'. Adam selected a white MG convertible. It was nearly dawn when they got back to Tait's house, which was empty but for the two of them. They drank more, and Adam recalls suddenly feeling profoundly sleepy. That's when, Adam says, Tait told him, ''It's ok, just go to sleep,' and then he laid my head on his lap.' Adam's next memory of that night is 'waking up in his bed, my pants unzipped, and [Tait] was jerking me off. I passed out again, then woke up, wondering 'what the fuck is happening?' I went to the bathroom and had a panic attack, asking myself, 'Am I supposed to go there and beat him up? Or am I supposed to play it cool?'' Like Davis and Gabriel, Adam had been abused as a child. 'It made me a lot more insecure, wondering 'Why me? Am I weak? Too innocent? Was this my fault?' I didn't ask for this, I was just hanging out with a superstar.' Adam says he believes Tait drugged him that night. He shared the story with his girlfriend at the time, and a couple of fellow musicians who were close with Tait, and recalls that 'some of them stopped hanging out with me after that, which hurt, and made me afraid.' A close friend of Adam at the time confirmed to the Guardian that Adam told him about what he says happened. Many sources we spoke with also feared reprisal, and would only speak on the condition of anonymity. Several people who were interviewed said they recall Tait stripping down to his underwear or naked at parties and backstage of a concert, often exposing himself to young musicians touring as his opening act. Jacob (not his real name) was a 21-year-old musician when he met 40-year-old Tait in the winter of 2004. The two were both performing at a church concert, and Tait invited Jacob to fly out to Nashville and stay a few nights at the home of his childhood hero. Once there, Jacob was surprised at the amount of cigarettes and alcohol Tait and his friends consumed, as he had never had a drink in his life. One night, the two of them alone in Tait's kitchen, Jacob claims, 'Tait somehow brought up that he had a huge urethra. And then he just whipped it out and showed it to me.' Jacob had been sleeping on the floor of Tait's house, as he didn't have a spare bed, and when Tait offered to share his king-sized bed with him, Jacob didn't think anything of it, as this wasn't uncommon among touring musicians. He wasn't sure what to think of the massages Tait kept giving him, in the hot tub earlier that night, and then in his bed. When Tait's hands 'moved lower and lower and lower, until he was massaging my butt-cheeks, I didn't know what to do, because I looked up to him, and didn't want to make him mad'. Jacob tried his best to delicately rebuff Tait's advances, saying, ''Hey man, I'm not into that.' Tait said OK and went to sleep.' (Jacob's girlfriend at the time, who is now his wife, corroborated the details of his story, which he shared with her at the time.) Israel Anthem was only 13 when Tait allegedly exposed his penis to him in 2001. Anthem descended from the Rambo family, who were legends in the field of gospel music. His grandmother, Dottie Rambo (whose songs had been recorded by Elvis, Johnny Cash, and many more), was being honored with a lifetime achievement award, and the members of DC Talk were in attendance. Anthem and his family took pictures with the band, and a few weeks later they were eating in a Nashville restaurant when 'Michael walked in, and came by our table to say hi.' Anthem was 'a huge, lifelong DC Talk fan', he recalls. 'Some kids sleep with Teddy Bears, I slept with DC Talk cassettes.' He says he was stoked when the two happened to be in the restaurant bathroom at the same time later that night, sharing side-by-side urinals. 'He was still at the urinal when I was washing my hands, and as we were talking [about a CD that had just come out] I noticed his penis was out, and he was facing me, turned away from the urinal. I thought he was putting his penis away, but then he was rubbing his penis, and making eye contact, while I was talking.' Anthem recalls this lasting anywhere from 30 to 60 seconds, with Tait 'visibly aroused' and 'fondling himself'. Back at the table, a family member recalls, Anthem looked 'white as a ghost, absolutely terrified.' Anthem later described the alleged bathroom incident to that family member, who corroborated his story to the Guardian. Tait's career was on a stable trajectory until January of this year. Last Christmas he made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, and the previous Christmas he played Carnegie Hall with Amy Grant and others. That all came to a halt on 15 January, when host of the Yass, Jesus podcast, Azariah Southworth, claimed Tait was gay in a viral TikTok video that received over 250,000 views before it was removed for violation of TikTok guidelines. 'I felt he was fair game,' Southworth says. 'Some people disagreed with the ethics of [outing someone against their will], but this deserved to be said out loud. Keeping quiet would allow a false narrative to continue, fueling a movement that is hurting myself, as a gay man, and my trans brothers and sisters.' Southworth – who grew up in a strict evangelical household, and was traumatized by five years of 'conversion therapy' – was the host of a Christian reality TV show in 2004-05 that featured Tait. During that time, he claims to have seen Tait gambling, smoking and cursing, behavior that would've scandalized Christian audiences. Within days of Southworth publishing his video, Tait announced in a social media post that 'it is time [I] step down from Newsboys,' offering fans little explanation as to why. Shortly after this, the remaining members of Newsboys released a statement addressing the allegations, insisting that it was only last January when 'Michael confessed to us and our management that he 'had been living a double-life,'' the band wrote, adding: 'But we never imagined that it could be this bad … Our hearts are with the victims who have bravely shared their stories.' In the closing of Tait's 'confession' on Tuesday, he offers understanding to those who lost 'respect, faith and trust in me', later citing the story of King David's prayer for forgiveness after he had committed adultery and murder. Though he is quick to add that 'it crushes me to think that someone would lose or choose not to pursue faith because I have been such a horrible representative of him.' This was Gabriel's experience, saying he had 'blamed God' for the trauma he allegedly endured that night. 'Tait was presented as the pinnacle of godliness,' he says, trembling with tears in his eyes. 'I get that all people sin, but to use the facade of his righteousness to commit sin, that made me walk away from my faith for a while. He took something from me I'll never get back. In time, though, I found my own may back to God.'
Wales Online
3 days ago
- Wales Online
Man responded to Facebook post and it ended up costing him more than £1,200
Man responded to Facebook post and it ended up costing him more than £1,200 James Joyce claimed he 'did everything by the book' - but it turned out to be untrue A man has been ordered to pay a total of £1,274 after taking away waste despite not having a licence to do so (Image: Neath Port Talbot Council ) A man has been ordered to pay more than £1,200 after responding to a Facebook post asking someone to remove waste even though he was not licensed to do so. Unknown to James Joyce, 45, of Llangyfelach Road, Swansea, the Facebook post was part of Operation Walt - a joint "test purchase" operation to combat unlicensed waste carriers by Neath Port Talbot Council with partners South Wales Police. After Joyce responded to the social media post, he removed the waste advertised for £40 from Lonlas Village Workshops in October of last year. He assured a member of staff he spoke to at the workshops "he did everything by the book". Don't miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here . After driving away with the waste, Joyce was stopped and spoken to by waste enforcement officers. A check confirmed that he did not have a licence to transport waste so he was issued an Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) for the offence. As payment was not received, a reminder letter was sent to Joyce who made no contact with waste enforcement officers and as such a final reminder letter was sent out via first class post in November last year. Article continues below Later, after the FPN was not still not paid he was prosecuted for carrying controlled waste, contrary to s1(5) of the Control of Pollution (amendment) Act 1989. At Swansea Magistrates Court on Thursday, May 29, Joyce pleaded guilty to the offence and was fined £615, ordered to pay costs of £413 and given a £246 victim surcharge - a total of £1,274. Councillor Scott Jones, Neath Port Talbot Council's cabinet member for streetscene, said: "The cheap and unlawful removal of waste by unlicensed persons, has an effect on the local economy in that it presents unfair competition to legitimate businesses and this case shows the council and its partners will use every power available to them to bring to justice anyone who moves waste without the proper licence being in place."
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
Fined for feeding the ducks and picking up litter. How ‘Stasi-like' councils are ripping off Britain
While serious criminal behaviour all too often goes unpunished, councils across the country are increasingly issuing fines for misdemeanours as innocuous as putting the bins out early or feeding the ducks. After one west London man was penalised with a fixed penalty notice (FPN) for putting his bins out early last month – more on which below – the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, warned that local authorities were veering into 'Stasi-like control of people's lives'. 'Instead of cracking down on genuine antisocial behaviour, the state tries to reassert itself by punishing well-meaning people for tiny infringements,' he told The Telegraph. 'It's the easy thing to do but it's counter-productive and unfair.' Indeed, on-the-spot penalties – condemned by critics as 'busybody fines' – have been rising for years. Data show such fines soared by 42 per cent in the year to 2023, resulting in nearly 20,000 FPNs being dished out, according to research conducted by civil liberties group the Manifesto Club. Although nominally aimed at cracking down on antisocial behaviour such as loitering and littering (offering local authorities a way to deal with relatively minor offences outside of court), the seemingly heavy-handed use of these penalties in a justice system where people convicted of grave crimes are often handed short or suspended sentences seems ever more unjustifiable. Here are some of the most egregious examples… The widower fined £500 for a fly-away envelope Martin Fielder had given up his job to care for his young children after the death of his wife when he was hit with a £500 fine and the threat of a criminal record in February this year. His misdemeanour? An errant envelope that he suspects flew out of his recycling bin. After the envelope had been found by a council warden 250ft from his house, Fielder was accused of fly-tipping in a letter sent by District Enforcement, a private contractor of Welwyn Hatfield borough council that issues FPNs on commission. The ensuing back-and-forth with the council, he said, has left him in a state of 'constant anxiety'. 'The letter stated that if the fine was not paid within 28 days, the matter would be referred to the magistrates' court, where I could go to prison for up to 12 months or receive a bigger fine, or both,' Fielder told The Guardian newspaper. Fielder explained that strong winds the night before could have caused the packaging to fly out of his recycling bin, and the company downgraded the charge to a £100 littering fine. He is now deciding whether to challenge the penalty in court. As in Fielder's case, the administration of FPNs is often outsourced from cash-strapped councils to third-party contractors, prompting critics to suggest the system is used to replenish local authorities' coffers and wide open to exploitation. Indeed, the Manifesto Club's research indicated that the 39 local authorities which employed private enforcement companies were behind 14,633 of the penalties served in 2023, while 261 councils that did not issued just 4,529 by comparison. 'While councils fire off fixed penalty notices for fly-away envelopes, real criminals are being let off the hook,' says William Yarwood of the TaxPayers' Alliance. 'Taxpayers will be rightly jaded that trivial mishaps are being met with extortionate fines. Councils need to make sure that the private companies they hire don't have skewed incentives that encourage the handing out of fines merely to make a profit.' The five-year-old hit with a £1,000 bill for fly-tipping In November last year, Harrow council issued a five-year-old girl with a £1,000 FPN that claimed she had been 'witnessed by a uniformed officer… committing the offence of fly-tipping'. What had actually happened, according to the girl's father, was that parcel packaging with her name on it had been found on a neighbouring street due to overfilled communal bins. The child was then sent a 'final reminder' letter from the local authority's enforcement team the month after, which advised that it was 'about to instruct the council's legal team to start court proceedings'. Her father branded the fine 'absurd' and, after failing to resolve the issue himself, went to a ward surgery held by his local councillor. The issue was then raised at a council cabinet meeting, after which APCOA, the private contractor used by Harrow council to issue FPNs, apologised and the fine was dropped. The pensioner penalised £150 for feeding the ducks Faye Borg, 82, was in Morden Hall Park, a National Trust property, in August last year when she was fined £150 for feeding the ducks. She was approached by two council wardens, who issued an FPN that said a 'female was seen throwing biscuits' into the River Wandle. Borg alleges that the two wardens, who worked for Kingdom, a company contracted to provide environmental enforcement services to local authorities, followed her to her doorstep, demanding she 'pay the fine on the spot'. Merton council subsequently apologised, sent a senior member to Borg's home with flowers, and said it was 'taking this matter up with our contractor to ensure that it does not happen again'. 'These kinds of absurd fines exist only because the companies are being paid per fine,' says Josie Appleton, the founder of the Manifesto Club. 'The Government is reviewing fining for profit, but it's taking far too long to do something about it. So long as wardens are being paid per fine, this is going to happen, no matter how many regulations are in place.' The west Londoner fined £1,000 for putting out his bins early Hammersmith and Fulham council fined Clyde Strachan £1,000 for 'fly-tipping' in May when he put his bins out a few hours early. The 37-year-old was going away from his home for a few days, so he put his rubbish and recycling out at midday the day before the refuse was due to be collected. 'I deliberately put them out of the way on the pavement, tucked to one side against the wall so they weren't in anyone's way,' he said. 'It meant I had put them out about six or seven hours before… I would normally take them there.' When he returned home, however, he was issued with a £1,000 FPN, reduced to £500 if it were paid early. It stated: 'There was one large box, six bags of waste, and one food bin deposited on the pavement and left. It isn't collection day so it shouldn't be there.' The penalty was cancelled after Strachan appealed. He argued it was 'excessive' given he had made an 'honest mistake'. The man charged £1,224 for cycling in Grimsby town centre Last month, Richard Cameron, 45, was found guilty of four cycling offences for pedalling down Victoria Street in Grimsby town centre, which is subject to a public spaces protection order intended to deal with recurrent antisocial behaviour. In a press release, North East Lincolnshire council said that Cameron had received four FPNs for 'recurrent cycling offences' but 'had not paid the fines and was therefore summoned to Grimsby magistrates' court'. It continued: 'Also being prosecuted that day was Viktorija Kosareva, 28, of Smith Square, Doncaster, who was summoned for not paying an FPN she received for walking her dog on Cleethorpes beach when not permitted to do so… Neither individual attended court and both were proven guilty in their absence.' Cameron was ordered to pay £1,224, consisting of a £660 fine, £264 victim surcharge and costs of £300. The Staffordshire couple fined £1,200 for a cardboard box Rubbish dumped on Veronika Mike and Zoltan Pinter 's street in Stoke-on-Trent had started to attract rats, so they took matters into their own hands. The couple said the area had been blighted with 'disgusting' litter for years and 'just wanted it clean', so collected the refuse into an old cardboard box – addressed to Pinter – that he placed by his bins in the hope that it would be taken away by Stoke-on-Trent city council. 'I couldn't put it in the bins because they were full, so I left it beside them,' he said. A week later, Pinter was issued an FPN for 'an offence of failing to transfer waste to an authorised person', and fined £600. Mike was fined the same, despite her name not appearing on the cardboard box. The couple are paying the penalty in monthly instalments. The woman charged £850 for failing to update her dog's microchip When Violet Cooper, 38, arrived to collect Juliet, her lost chow-chow dog, in August last year, she was issued with a notice requiring her to update the microchip details within 21 days (microchipping has been compulsory for pet cats and dogs since April 2016). Cooper failed to do so, and last month was found guilty at Salisbury magistrates' court of failing to comply with the notice. She was fined £847.59 – a fine of £220, plus £539.59 in costs and an £88 victim surcharge.
