Falsely accused of fly tipping

dombratt

So about a month ago I received a letter for fly tipping, I currently reside at my sisters house due to covid and I was inbetween accommodation, my sister keeps the rubbish in the back garden if missed or unable to put out(evidence of this has been provided to the council). Leading me to assume that another address had received my letter by accident and had not disposed of it properly. I explained all of this in writing about a day or so after receiving the letter.

Forward on a month, I get a letter back completely disregards my letter and said it is my responsibility if someone else basically fly tips my personal letters, my question is, if I never received the letter how can I be liable? If I had fly tipped, hands up, you've got me but this isn't the case and there is no way of speaking to a member of the council to discuss 

I sent another letter asking for the evidence to be provided, explain how I am liable for another house locally fly tipping straight away, I get another letter about 3 weeks later, again disregards my letter and says I have 7 days to pay....

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks 

Dom

sevenhills

dombratt said:

So about a month ago I received a letter for fly tipping, I currently reside at my sisters house due to covid and I was inbetween accommodation, my sister keeps the rubbish in the back garden if missed or unable to put out(evidence of this has been provided to the council). Leading me to assume that another address had received my letter by accident and had not disposed of it properly. I explained all of this in writing about a day or so after receiving the letter.

Are you on the electoral role or has your name been added to the council tax, bills in your name, driving licence?

If not they might think you are just making an excuse.

AdrianC

Fly-tipped rubbish has been found that links to you - you are assuming that that link is a letter which you never received, but you have no way of knowing that.

Section62

dombratt said:

I sent another letter asking for the evidence to be provided, explain how I am liable for another house locally fly tipping straight away, I get another letter about 3 weeks later, again disregards my letter and says I have 7 days to pay....

The evidence will be the item (or items) they found with your name and address (or other personal details) on them, in a place where they shouldn't have been.  That's it.  Unless you are officially at that address (e.g. paying council tax, on the electoral roll etc) then them writing to you at that address would itself confirm they have that evidence.

What they are very unlikely to have is evidence that you personally dumped the letter.  Unfortunately the way the law is currently framed and enforced, you will be presumed guilty of flytipping the letter unless you can prove otherwise, which in most cases is impossible. (a confession from the person who actually did it could be an example)

If you don't pay the FPN (I assume that's what you have) the Council may decide to prosecute. So if you are thinking about not paying then you should probably get some legal advice on what the implications of that might be in your personal circumstances.

Things that might help (or not) include what you normally do with letters you get. If you and/or your sister normally just put them in rubbish bags then you should work on the assumption the Council might have already looked through rubbish put out for collection and found other examples of letters thrown out. Then if you claim that you always keep letters and never throw them out the council will have evidence that claim isn't true. Conversely, if you have a file of bank statements going back to when you were a child, you might just about manage to persuade a court (if you get prosecuted) that throwing away personal correspondence is out of character.

Hence a lot of people either pay the FPN to make it go away, or ignore the letters from the council and hope the threats are a bluff.

It is definitely worth checking the Government guidance relevant to the alleged contravention to make sure the council's enforcement is in line with Government intentions.  E.g., this is the one for household waste DoC FPNs -
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/household-waste-duty-of-care-fixed-penalty-notice-guidance

dombratt

I am registered to that address on my personal documents electoral role etc, I have asked them to provide what information they have regarding this matter(nothing provided) so I can only assume in this case. The spot where the rubbish was found is notorious for the area for local houses dumping rubbish, but I also know that my sister has received letters from other houses locally via the post(obviously discarded properly) and I have also had post that I was waiting for never arrive.

Just seems crazy they can bang a £400 fine for a letter I never received, like could this happen again next week and then the next? Where does it stop

dombratt

So the facts are

- The council have found waste containing a document that has my name and address on in a bin bag at the back of an alley that is just behind the house(for 2 rows of houses back to back)
- Evidence of this has not been provided or explained, I had just got a letter in the post

- The waste is collected every 2 weeks(rotates with recycling weekly)

- I have photographic evidence of over a months waste in the back garden

- I have responded to the council almost instantly, in writing to discuss the matter and they seem to just disregard and chase for money within a month of receiving my letters - I hand delivered these letters and each have been recorded and the dates noted

AdrianC

dombratt said:

So the facts are

- The council have found waste containing a document that has my name and address on in a bin bag at the back of an alley that is just behind the house(for 2 rows of houses back to back)
- Evidence of this has not been provided or explained, I had just got a letter in the post

- The waste is collected every 2 weeks(rotates with recycling weekly)

- I have photographic evidence of over a months waste in the back garden

- I have responded to the council almost instantly, in writing to discuss the matter and they seem to just disregard and chase for money within a month of receiving my letters - I hand delivered these letters and each have been recorded and the dates noted

Did you read this section of the link that @Section62 provided?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/household-waste-duty-of-care-fixed-penalty-notice-guidance/guidance-for-local-authorities-on-household-waste-duty-of-care-fixed-penalty-notices#non-payment-of-fixed-penalties

Accepting an FPN accepts that you committed the offence.

If you do not accept the FPN, because you do not accept guilt, then the next step for them would be to take it to court. The court then decides if you did commit the offence or not, based on the evidence presented by each side.

You cannot appeal an FPN - you simply accept it or reject it. If you want to present a defence, you do so at the court.

An assumption that the fly-tipped rubbish was a letter you never received is not a defence.

A photo of a month's worth of rubbish piled up in a garden, when there are fortnightly collections, is not a defence. It may be seen by the court as demonstrating that your household has a cavalier attitude towards waste.

sevenhills

dombratt said:

- I have responded to the council almost instantly, in writing to discuss the matter and they seem to just disregard and chase for money within a month of receiving my letters - I hand delivered these letters and each have been recorded and the dates noted

Make it clear to the council that you have not fly-tipped and will plead not guilty if they take you to court.

Section62

dombratt said:

So the facts are

- The council have found waste containing a document that has my name and address on in a bin bag at the back of an alley that is just behind the house(for 2 rows of houses back to back)

Then an important factor - if this ends up as a prosecution - is whether or not that bin bag contained any other personally identifying items.

If there are items that can be traced to one of the neighbours that might support your case.  If this is the only item, or all items relate to your address, you may find it difficult to prove you (or your sister) weren't responsible.

[Deleted User]

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dombratt

[DELETED USER] said:

It's one of those nasty situations where the law makes you guilty until proven innocent and it's almost impossible to prove you are innocent.

The burden of proof is supposed to be "beyond reasonable doubt" but in practice the courts often just assume that something with your name on it means you must have done it, even though there a hundred ways it could have got there with no involvement from you.

If you do reject it and go to court you will get to see what evidence they have. You might find there is something you can use, such as an incorrectly addressed letter or a sealed envelope with a bank statement that you would clearly have wanted and not dumped. The problem is they will only submit the minimum evidence they need to so you probably won't get a complete picture of what happened. You could try questioning the person who found it but that isn't easy.

Legal advice would help but probably cost you £100 and then advise you to pay the fine anyway. If you aren't too worried about the conviction and costs then you could proceed to court anyway.

Welcome to the English "justice" system.

That's what I just don't get, if I received your letter for example and I live on the same road, i can just fly tip your letter and boom £400 FPN and there is little to nothing you can do about it, assuming you don't personally handle all of your waste and keep note of every single letter you have?