A small victory in Hertfordshire

Many years ago, I watched a popular television programme in which a presenter confronted an old man about dropping litter.  The old man asked the presenter if he knew of anyone who had ever been prosecuted for dropping litter, and the presenter replied to the effect that he did not.

Back in those days it seemed easy to get away with dropping litter.  I remember someone once explaining that in order to be prosecuted for dropping litter a police officer had to see you drop the litter, and had to tell you to pick it up.  Only if you declined to pick up the litter could you be prosecuted.

I remember also that Mrs Thatcher when Prime Minister in the late 1980s promised a war on litter, but nothing came of it.

Nowadays it is different.  It is common for local authorities to employ litter wardens who are able to impose spot fines for anyone they suspect of dropping litter.  Specific cases I am aware of include:

• A woman who accidentally let some ash fall from the end of a cigarette.
• A woman who dropped the wrapping from a packet of cigarettes, even though she immediately picked it up.
• A woman who was accused of throwing a cigarette end from a car window, even though she maintained that a child in her car had thrown a Cheesy Wotsit out of the window.

In this last case - if I remember rightly - the woman went to a council depot and picked up a number of cigarette ends which had presumably been dropped by council employees.

In short, while I welcome the drive to reduce the amount of litter dropped in the streets, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that at least some councils use litter enforcement procedures as a means to extort money from innocent people on a fairly random basis.

It has recently been reported that Broxbourne Borough Council has lost a court case against a man called Luke Gutteridge, who refused to pay a spot fine for dropping a piece of orange peel.  The magistrates in the case ruled that littering is an offence in respect of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 only where there is proof of intent.

It appears that the council brought a case to court without regard for the wording of the law, and have left the taxpayer with a legal bill of thousands of pounds.

I will add that Broxbourne Borough Council has been run continuously by the Conservative Party since its inception in 1973.

Related previous posts include:
A small victory in Barnet
Court victory on bank charges