Fine for litter that isn’t mine.

lincroft1710

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Ju. said:

It doesn’t have a name at all. Just the address. 

 

Ju. said:I don’t live alone, my adult daughter lives here. 

 

If your daughter is on the council tax, registered to vote, etc I don't see how the council can determine it was yourself, not to imply it was your daughter simply that a criminal conviction requires beyond reasonable doubt and 2 people at an address creates doubt it was one rather than the other. 

. 

Unless the daughter was a resident co-owner or co-tenant she would not be liable for council tax and thus her name would not be on the CT bill or register. Similarly the electoral roll is not an infallible guide to who is living at a particular address. But obviously a bonus if the person referred to appears on either or both.

Kim_13

Okell said:

born_again said:

If all they have is an address and nothing else, then even if the pizza was delivered to your address how could they prove it was you rather than your daughter (or vice versa) who deposited it?

It would on the basis of the householder (council tax payer) who would receive it given the pizza boxes were found next to a waste bin in plastic sacks...

I'm not sure I follow.  Why would being a council tax payer be evidence that anyone had committed a criminal offence?

If that line of reasoning were a valid form of argument then the police wouldn't need to send a s172 request to the Registered Keeper of a vehicle caught speeding as it wouldn't matter who was driving.  They could just prosecute and convict the Registered Keeper.

But that isn't how it works because in order to be convicted of a criminal offence the prosecution have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that you committed the offence.  A bit of litter with an address on it is not evidence that any particular person living at that address "deposited" it.

In this case more than one person lives at the address, so if the only evidence the council has is an address, how would they know which person living at that address to prosecute?

Several posters have also already suggested various reasonable explanations as to why the pizza box might have the OP's address on it yet the OP have no other connection to it whatsoever.

On what the OP has told us I think it doubtful that he could be convicted.  The council might not even prosecute.

But it's up to the OP how he wants to handle it.  The surest way to avoid all possibility of being convicted is to pay the FPN.

Also surely if the did belong to the person at the address, they would most often (acknowledging that a minority will have a lack of common sense and incriminate themselves) have removed their address before deciding to dump it, so they couldn’t…you know, get a FPN.

That it might be more likely to happen again, given the venue in close proximity, would lead me to be more inclined to go to court (in the unlikely event that the council took it further.) They must know that the box isn’t evidence, so to pursue the matter would be wasting council taxpayers’ money. As OP says, there will be no defence if they pay and it does happen again.

born_again

TELLIT01 said:

Really just thinking aloud here but, if there was only one person living at the address it would be more understandable if a package with an address but no name was presumed to be associated with the person at that address.  The question is, how does a council decide who they are going to charge with littering if there are multiple people living at an address? Pick one at random from those on the electoral register; choose the person who pay the Council Tax?

Person that pays the council tax at a guess. Rather than looking at electoral roll. Which often will not have everyones name on.