Fixed Penalty Notice for Littering

Idle_Jim

Ignoring the moral/ethical/legal debate on what happened and whether it was justified, proper and right.... I reckon little Johnny will think twice about littering again after this escapade!

PLog86

George_Michael wrote: »

According to Defra (a government department), the accidental dropping of litter is an offence, therefore it must be classed as strict liability.



http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/local/legislation/cnea/documents/fixed-penalty-guidance.pdf
[FONT=Frutiger LT 45 Light,Frutiger LT 45 Light][/FONT]

[FONT=Frutiger LT 45 Light,Frutiger LT 45 Light]Fair enough, they do go on to say that they don't think a fixed penalty should be issued if the dropping of litter was accidental, but this doesn't change the fact that irrespective of it being non intentional, they still consider that an offence had been committed.[/FONT]

Wow!

You could hardly have got that more wrong if you'd tried.

Was it dropped or did it fall? Intentional versus unintentional littering

The essence of the question posed above is, does the unintentional dropping of a piece of litter constitute an offence? If a strict interpretation of the littering offence is applied, as described in section 87 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990
(i.e. ‘any individual who throws, drops or otherwise deposits litter….’) then yes an argument could be made that if something, for example, falls out from someone’s pocket, then according to the letter of the law an offence has been committed.

In the first place it's what the LAW says that is important, not just the opinion of some civil servant on a web site - even if it is a government one.

In the second place, the piece you quoted doesn't even say what you seem to think it says. It poses a question and then says something about the corollary IF it is answered in a certain way. It does not even suggest that it SHOULD be answered in that way and the usual rule for strict liability in criminal law suggests that in fact it should NOT be answered in that way.

Azari

I'm at a loss to understand why certain posters here seem so intent that a relatively trivial (although very annoying) action such as littering should be given the status of a strict liability offence when so many vastly more serious ones are not.

dodger1

catgil wrote: »

For heavens sake some posters need to get a life. A child drops a sweet in the street and you think he deserves an £80 fine. It's a disgrace that adults pick on little kids in that way :mad: If I were the OP I would be fuming!

If a mentally able 13 year old deliberately drops litter without any intention of picking it up then yes he deserves the same punishment as an adult, ie an £80 fine.

dodger1

Azari wrote: »

I'm at a loss to understand why certain posters here seem so intent that a relatively trivial (although very annoying) action such as littering should be given the status of a strict liability offence when so many vastly more serious ones are not.

The cost of litter collection in Britain is now approaching £1bn per year, hardly trivial.

Azari

dodger1 wrote: »

The cost of litter collection in Britain is now approaching £1bn per year, hardly trivial.

But the crime is relatively trivial compared to many that are not strict liability.

katejo

The warden should have simply pointed the dropped sweet out to the boy and asked him to pick it up. I wish I had the power to fine every smoker who drops fag ends and anyone who deliberately drops litter. I recently watched someone who bought a sandwich in a Tesco local. She stepped out of the shop to throw the wrapper on the pavement and went back inside.

shaun_from_Africa

katejo wrote: »

The warden should have simply pointed the dropped sweet out to the boy and asked him to pick it up.

This may have happened and the request refused.
The only people who will know for definite what happened will be those who were present which leads to posters simply having to base their answers on guesswork.

Unfortunately, many litter wardens (I don't know their correct title) will only pick on the easy targets as they know that a request to many adults to pick up litter will either result in a "**** off" or a punch in the face.

dodger1

Azari wrote: »

But the crime is relatively trivial compared to many that are not strict liability.

I'm not sure which crimes you are referring to but maybe it would be better to include those as strict liability rather than removing the litter one.

vlad_the_impaler

What a depressing thread.

'My son was littering'
'My son got busted littering and now has to pay an £80 fine'
'My son got taken to his school by the warden'

And what do we get? 'frogmarched', 'assulted', '!!!!!!', 'threats', 'why should I have to pay?', 'how can I get away without paying?'

!!!!!!? Have we all lost our minds? What does this teach your son? What life lesson is he getting?

'Duck and dive and get away with it?'
'I have all the rights, but no responsibilities'
'The state will clean up after me, I don't have to have any personal responsiblity to the community'.

Your son was caught. Many inspectors use their discretion, some maybe don't. Has it occured to you that your son may have forgotton to mention that he was rude to the inspector? Showing off in front of his mates? I'm sure he was politeness itself of course - not that he knew he could rely on his 'I know my rights' parent to back him up.

We are destroying our children by not teaching them personal responsibility, and responsibility to each other and to the community as a whole. He got caught, get over it. Pay the fine and make sure he pays you back every penny. Perhaps that will teach him not to litter and be rude in future? You would be amazed at how far politeness, self reliance and empathy can take a young man in the future world of work. A lot, lot futher than 'it's not fair, I know my rights, you can't do that, i'm telling my mum on you.....'