[Mrluvaluva]

A girl aged four who dropped a piece of sausage roll landed her mother with a £75 fine after they were pounced on by litter wardens.

Little Chloe Davies had just been handed a piece of the snack by mother Sarah, but it missed her mouth and fell on the ground.

Seconds later, council 'environmental crime' officers handed the pair a £75 on-the-spot fine – though Ms Davies claims pigeons had already flown away with the piece of pastry.

The 20-year-old mother, who lives on £94 a week, at first refused to give the wardens her details and claims she was threatened with arrest in Hull city centre on Monday.

She said: 'At first I thought they were canvassers as they were dressed in tracksuit bottoms. But one came up to me, said he was from the council and said I was going to be fined.

'He wasn't polite at all, he was rude, and I began to walk away. He then said I would be arrested if I didn't give him my name and details. I was treated like a criminal.'

Ms Davies has vowed to fight the fine and is prepared to go to court.

Conservatives on Hull City Council said it was 'officialdom gone mad'.

Councillor David Woods, of the ruling Lib Dems, pledged to investigate but added: 'There are always some people who don't think it's their responsibility to take rubbish home.'

Earlier this month, Wolverhampton City Counil spent £2,800 in a bid to prosecute a woman who threw an apple core from her car window.


Original article here

[Harry!]

Make it 80 for litter.

[Shaun]

Pretty harsh story, but the bit it relates to at the bottom is fair enough - the stupid woman shouldn't have thrown her apple core out of the window.

[MrGaryy]

Harsh! Apples aren't too bad as the rot and stuff so a £2,800 is very over the top.

[Sticks]

She had it coming

She should pay up and shut up

When we were young we were never allowed to eat in the streets let alone feed the rats with wings.

I hope she looses at court

[Xander]

Thats just stupid, this country is getting pretty pathetic to be honest. Other countries arn't as bad as we are with things like this.

[Shaun]

Originally posted by Sticks
She had it coming

She should pay up and shut up

When we were young we were never allowed to eat in the streets let alone feed the rats with wings.

I hope she looses at court

Never allowed to eat in the streets? Where did you live? In the fictional world of 1984?

And she dropped it, she didn't intend to feed the pigeons.

[Sticks]

If she were not eating in the street she would not have dropped the litter

[Matt08]

Originally posted by Sticks
If she were not eating in the street she would not have dropped the litter

She had every right to eat in the streets. There's no laws to stop her.... if the pastry from her sausage roll fell onto the floor by accident then I can't see the problem. Remember, this girl is only 4 so none of them should be held responsible.
Just another way that our **** government can money grab from citizens of this country.

[Tom]

I don't think she should have been fined but surely the court costs will cost more than £75 so rather than appealing she should just shut up and pay? But deary me, living on £94/week?! I didn't even think that would be possible.

[Sticks]

If the child was complaining about being hungry the mother should have applied a bit of discipline. She could quite easily have waited until they got home.

[Sunny_01]

I think this highlights the problems with the legal system in this country. What a disgrace to be fined for food falling to the floor when trying to feed your child.

As for should have shown more restraint and fed the child at home, come on Sticks get with the times! I will feed my children/grandchild when they are hungry and if that happens to be out of the home then I do not expect to be judged for it.

We have criminals walking free in this country or rapist who can not be convicted because of grey areas in the law yet parents can be fined when their child drops pastry to the floor

[Mrluvaluva]

So picnics are now out of the question? Sitting on the sea front eating chips? If you are out of the house for hours on end you cannot eat unless you go into a cafe, pub or restaurant? You can't go into a shop for a pasty or something for fear of dropping a bit of pastry? This is absolutely ridiculous.

[Xander]

Originally posted by Sticks
If the child was complaining about being hungry the mother should have applied a bit of discipline. She could quite easily have waited until they got home.

Most people do tend to eat in the streets, its normal. There are muderers out there that are getting away,while this country is so pathetic and uptight that they fine someone for dropping a bit of pastry.

[Harry!]

Dropping litter destroys the enviroment.

[Xander]

Originally posted by Posted
Dropping litter destroys the enviroment.

Pastry is biodegradable

[Sticks]

Dropping food can lead to a menace from birds, as reported here

So the fact that pastry is biodegradable is irrelevant. Picnic areas are supposedly regulated, or they should be, but the actions by others, training certain birds make them more unusable.

As for sitting on the seafront eating chips, not everyone puts their uneaten chips in the bin, and the smell from the wrappers can be enough to attract vermin.

If I want to eat fish and chips at the coast, there is a nice restaurant I can sit in and eat, out of the weather and away from the flying menaces.

[Stu]

Originally posted by Sticks
She had it coming

Of course Sticks mate. Children under the age of ten have a rare mental phenomena giving them the ability to predict when they are going to drop food by accident.

Originally posted by Posted
Dropping litter destroys the enviroment.

Have you even read the story? And why increase the fines to £80? is an extra five quid going to convince litter bugs to stop?

[Glenn.]

Absolutley ridiculus. Yet another way for scheming counsils to grab money off of people. What a country we live in. Doesnt it make you proud to be British? Rapists and Murderers walk the streets free, and a 4yr olds mum is attacked in the street for dropping litter accidently
Sticks I think your views on this are a bit eccentric, either that or your just as bad as the counsil!

[Rocko]

lol. Litter wardens.

[supernoodles!]

Originally posted by Sticks
If she were not eating in the street she would not have dropped the litter

what and you`ve never once eaten anything in the street.Its clear to see it was a blatant accident.

[supernoodles!]

Originally posted by Sticks
If the child was complaining about being hungry the mother should have applied a bit of discipline. She could quite easily have waited until they got home.

i take it your not a parent yourself sticks?

[Sticks]

Originally posted by supernoodles!
i take it your not a parent yourself sticks?

This child was not a new born infant, it was a toddler at the age when they cry for things, you have to give a short sharp "NO" to in a loud voice, just like we were when we were young and people believed in discipline.

[Glenn.]

Ok then

[AngRemembered]

Originally posted by Sticks
She had it coming

She should pay up and shut up

When we were young we were never allowed to eat in the streets let alone feed the rats with wings.

I hope she looses at court

Funny I remember so many old school trips to Traffalgar sq in particular where the sole object of the trip was to do that very thing feed the "rats with wings".

I take it you have paid your moral fine for doing just that when it was deemed Ok to do so, a principle I rekon could have cost you on an £80 pro rata scale of thousands of pounds, did you pay your "moral fine" in one go or are you spreading the cost?

back in the good old days we not only fed pigeons but we smoked in maternity wards and swilled lager on hospital beds moments before our liver transplant opperations too.
Go back further and we even had a healthy bread and drippin diet and chips wrapped up in newspaper too, and you guessed it it was part of the chip supper image to throw the paper where ever you wanted, usually outside as thats where people ate chips as kids in those good ole days.
This was back in the day when picknicking in parks was a familly custom more than afternoon TV is now, we not only ate more meals outside we actually enjoyed it too, and more kids took those awful spam sandwhiches to school only to dump em outside the cruel fella's backyard, the one who complained the most at us kids, causing more.."rat with wings" food, no wonder pigeons are slimmer these days
But then we had people who did jobs back then to tidy up our streets, unlike today where were lucky if you get your bin (the size of a tea bag now) collected every week.
Today councils cut back on services such as refuge collection, yet still have the gaul to collect fines for this petty of all littering.
Oh, and in the good old days we had more bus tickets,train ticket stubbs and fag butts to throw on the ground too as all these were affordable or acceptable things to do in public.
Of course it took councils time to cotten on to this popularity and soon they took measures to end this open form of people actually being free to get on with there lives.

I dont know what street you lived on Sticks but everyone ate in public where I came from and done so messilly as we were kids afterall, and kids never change.
Now councils charge for dripping a sausage roll in the stret yet have forced smokers to crawl out of pubs and bookmakers (where everyone used to smoke) to fill up our litter picker less streets with fag butts, and who has been caught littering here?, Yep you guessed it NOBODY.

But we got the kid with the roll and you hope she gets done in court? assuming (and I really mean that in the most unlikely sense possible) we ever catch one who drops one of say potentailly 80 fag butts a week onto our streets a smoker littering, so sort of punishment would be fair to him or her then Sticks, based on this roll crime?