A woman has been landed with an £870 bill after she dropped a cigarette end in Hove.
Shannon Russell, 25, was spotted dropping the fag butt in George Street, Hove, a court was told this week.
But when she was approached by litter police asking for her name and address, she “provided false or inaccurate details”.
As a result of her littering, which happened on Friday 10 May, Brighton and Hove City Council took her to court on Wednesday (7 August)
Brighton magistrates heard the case in her absence and found her guilty of providing false or inaccurate details as well as littering.
Russell, of Bridge Close, Lancing, was fined £220 for each offence and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £30 and prosecution costs of £400, making £870 in total.
The council also took a man to court on Wednesday for fly-tipping in April.
Nathaniel Mckenzie Peck, 28, of Preston Road, Brighton, pleaded guilty to dumping black sacks of rubbish near his home.
He was fined £300 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £30 and prosecution costs of £350, making £680 in total.
Another man accused of fly-tipping in April failed to appear at court on Wednesday.
Aaron Reynolds, 29, of Ryelands Drive, Moulsecoomb, was accused of dumping blacks sacks of rubbish, a mattress, a sofa, electrical items and clothes near his home.
The court issued a warrant not backed for bail because Reynolds could be jailed for the offence.
The same court heard that black sacks of commercial waste from a restaurant in Western Road, Hove, had been dumped in nearby Waterloo Street.
The bench ordered the owner, Almoosh Snack Ltd, to ensure that a director turned up next month after the case was rescheduled.
The defence said that Ysen Ni, from Almoosh, was out of the country for medical reasons so the court adjourned the case until Wednesday 18 September.
The need to go to the Saint Andrews church and get people to pick up there cans, and bottles of alcohol along with there rubbish it’s a disgrace,the caretaker needs help there
So how did they get her details in order to prosecute her?
good story = shows how shit the council is
Hm… The council should provide more bins if they are going to stalk and then fine someone for littering. This isn’t helping the beach on a hot weekend or post-city event clean ups (they get volunteers to clean the beach instead…) Commercial flying tipping is an issue, but for some offenses listed… why on earth doesn’t the council have a day every couple of months to clear up larger items that can’t be taken to the tip, fir whatever reason. It saddens me my council tax goes towards litter police who rummage through black bags round back streets and stalk tourists as they arrive in our tourist town, to fine them £75 for 1 cigarette butt when there are very few bins. Give locals the ability to fix their problems, provide more services not hire people to fine them. Build public toilets so people arent disolving historic buildings with urine. More bins. More disposal services for residents. More council staff patroling the beaches, giving people a warning and an opportunity to correct their mistake/ behaviour before fining them. It’s ridiculously heavy handed and annoys everyone.
You can purchase portable cigarette ashtrays. People who smoke know they need to dispose of their Butts so can act responsible to do it.
So a fly-tipper is fined less than one cigarette butt. Yep that makes sense. NOT.
Yes, it appears mad but this lady was also fined for not providing correct details which made her fine more
Same theme, different outcome, gypsies trespassing next to graveyard (warren road)eventually moved on leaving their usual amount of rubbish for us to pay for the clean up, but nobody fined, but drop a fag butt, fined.
I accidentally dropped a half-smoked butt somewhere in Portslade today because my arthritic fingers were too numb to know it was gone. Fortunately the thought-police were nowhere to be seen.
Every year the council tax increases, while legitimate council services are cut, cut and cut again. Roads are no longer swept, grass verges and overhanging hedges not trimmed, roads left to disintegrate (yes, I know that last one is the county council’s responsibility) while lucrative contracts are handed out to “friends” who are well paid NOT to carry out these services that are supposed to be the council’s responsibility.
Perfectly reliable sodium-vapour street lamps are being replaced with relatively short-lived L.E.D units primarily to conceal the unpopular 5G relays they contain. Assets such as Madeira Drive are left to rot while tax-payers’ money is wasted on predictably loss-making schemes like that doughnut-on-a-stick where the wreckage of the once-beautiful West Pier remains as a permanent eyesore.
There was a time when local councils were responsible for the upkeep of the town. Roads were maintained, streets swept, overhanging vegetation cut back, verges trimmed and inherited assets preserved, but no more. It’s all farmed out to companies more interested in making a profit than in serving the public.
I realise these things are happening all over the country, which puts the blame firmly on central government, but this country is going to the dogs and will soon be beyond salvation while householders continue paying more for less.
Now we have smokers followed and fined ridiculous amounts for dropping a cigarette butt while the real polluters get away with anything.