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    North London girl, 5, sent £1k fine for 'fly-tipping' as council bombards her with court threats
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    North London girl, 5, sent £1k fine for ‘fly-tipping’ as council bombards her with court threats

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    18 Comments

    1. Spottswoodeforgod on

      If she needs to raise some money to pay the fine, I have a load of asbestos waste that I will pay to be rid of…

    2. jimicus on

      Should have completely ignored it until it got to court, then taken her out for a big day.

      It’d be worth it to see the look on everyone’s faces when her name is called and Dad comes up with her.

    3. Secure_Ticket8057 on

      So the ‘enforcement officer’ didn’t actually witness anything, did they? Despite what the letter said.

      I presume they have been fired? Getting someone dragged to court on the back of a lie used to be called perjury.

    5. socratic-meth on

      > However, it later transpired that parcel packaging with her name on was found on a street away from her home address, and she was not seen doing anything deliberate.

      Does this mean you can get someone in trouble by writing their name and address on a box and leaving it somewhere?

    6. LandryLaux on

      “However, it later transpired that parcel packaging with her name on was found on a street away from her home address, and she was not seen doing anything deliberate.”

      Just a tip for everyone, always make names on parcels unreadable when binning parcels because I have read countless stories of people being fined for fly tipping because packaging with their name on it fell out of a bin.

      So always do it just in case. These councils are relentless

    7. Optimism_Deficit on

      So from looking at the article, the council has ‘partnered’ with a car parking company to handle the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices for fly tipping.

      Why is them doing something as fucking stupid as trying to fine a 5 year old £1,000, and there being no easy way to resolve that idiocy, the slightest surprise.

      Edit: Oh, and lying about witnessing her doing it.

    8. Turbulent-Projects on

      Am I the only one concerned that the letter literally states it was “witnessed by a uniformed officer” only for that to be a complete lie?  Why are they allowed to lie about something like this without consequence?

    9. Rough-Reputation9173 on

      Says they claimed to have witnessed the person dropping the rubbish, but that was a complete fabrication. Genuinely if these are to be taken as official fines that we can be taken to court over then they should be held to a higher standard of paperwork and form filling in.

      No one witnessed this child fly tipping.

      Littering etc is wrong and gross I agree on that and even the punishments for the most part but every so often these officers take the piss.

    10. wagonwheels87 on

      What’s that, councils using spurious allegations to try and raise money through fines?

      Well I *never*.

    11. Thaiaaron on

      Councils shouldn’t be able to throw out thousands of fines across a population and hope some of them stick. In this case, where there have been egregious failings across the board, i’d like to see councils fined for undue stress and not following a reasonable protocol.

    12. TinFish77 on

      The assumption of guilt is the big thing that UK governments are going with these days. Conservative, Labour and one assumes the LibDems all seem to think nothing of it.

      They always say that a human being is involved in the process. They fail to mention that the human being is the actual accused, in them having to prove their innocence rather than the state having to prove guilt.

    13. Particular-Back610 on

      whilst fly-tipping is bad, suspect this is a nice little earner for the council – basically creating a little industry with its own revenue stream, likely outsourced to an unsavory company with “uniformed” officers.

    14. Alarmed_Inflation196 on

      That also hilariously looks like a total scam.

      “zatappeal.com”? wtf.

      “magistrates” courts? It’s Magistrates’ Courts

      “complaints@Harrow.gov.uk” – capital H?

      “ec6pay.com” ? “connecting to”?

      “You would need to pay £1000”. Would? Conditional upon what?

    16. Silver-Appointment77 on

      *Imagine fining a 5 year old.*

      *\i remember when my grandson was little, and we had 2 people from the enforcement team demanding to see my grandson, by name, as hed been doing anti social activity, and beeping the horn on his car at all hours. They were dead serious too.*

      *So I brought out my 1 and a half year old grandson.And had to get his birth certificate too to prove it. He was late walking and was still crawling, so asked them exactly how he could beep a horn on his own car, or even go out and do anti social things.*

      *I was wetting myself laughing, and the enforcement officers walked off with red faces. I still have no idea who reported him.*

    17. Torco2 on

      The extent to which the council etc will go,  to squeeze money from people, in such cases. Even if an individual case of chasing money costs far more than the amount in question.

      Is to show the public who’s boss. It’s deliberate intimidation, just like the threat letters, scary adverts & “detective vans” BS. TV Licencing does to coerce money out of people.

      Sometimes you get a farce like this. So apologies might get made “lessons will be learned”. It wont change though, it’s a feature not a bug.

      Also if they don’t want bloody fly-tipping. Maybe try emptying the bloody buggering bins. More than once or twice a month.