Bird feeding littering FPN

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

spendsmartsage said: Elderly man, uses a walking stick, encouraged by doctors to regularly take a walk, needs to sit down at a park bench to regain his breath, undertakes a simple pleasure of feeding some birds for a minute or two with a very small amount of bread before proceeding to walk back home. A completely innocent action that apparently merits not a warning but an immediate £150 fine.

Hello OP

There is government guidance on this:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6683d9b24e8630de328546a1/Code_of_practice_for_litter_and_refuse__Part_1A.pdf

and whist only guidance 11B.0 is probably of interest in your father's situation.

That said it is probably easier to pay the fine, particularly if your father wises to do so  

Undervalued

spendsmartsage said:

Hi, I'd like some advice on what to do about a Fixed Penalty Notice that my father received recently. He went for a walk into a nearby park, sat on one of the park benches around a pond garden to get his breath back (he's 75 and has mobility issues), and while he was there threw down small pieces of less than one slice of bread (he brought with him one and a half slices). Two enforcement officers were standing nearby who then approached him while he was sitting on the bench and began to issue him with a FPN for littering despite my father's protests.

I appealed on my father's behalf, where one of my arguments was that there isn't enough signage in the park explaining this rule. Of the 7 entrances to the park, 5 have entrance signs, as does the pond garden and playground, and none of them has anything about bird feeding. There is only a single notice outside the gate of one of these entrances, an entrance that isn't used by my father, which says this:

"DO NOT LITTER
Littering is an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and offenders could be fined up to £120

DO NOT FEED THE BIRDS
Littering is an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and offenders could be fined up to £120"

They rejected my appeal, mentioned how such an act can attract vermin, and basically said you either pay up or, in their words, 'wait for the Court summons to have your day in Court'. Their response was filled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to do now. The law (Environmental Protection Act 1990, Section 87) that my father broke according to them is this:

“A person is guilty of an offence if he throws down, drops or otherwise deposits any litter in any place to which this section applies and leaves it.”

However, my father threw down pieces of half a slice of bread, where every single morsel was consumed by the pigeons within seconds, and he never left the bench - the two officers approached him almost immediately. I did not make these arguments in my appeal.

My father doesn't want the stress of going to court even though I think there are clear grounds to have the fine dismissed (but maybe I'm wrong?), and says that I should pay the fine and move on. What do you think?

I think you are wrong legally. Morally, well if you ask five people you will get at least six opinions!

The fact that something your father threw down was eaten by pigeons is irrelevant. Suppose they had been startled and flown away. Then it might have been eaten by rats, another less popular type of vermin!

To prosecute, two tests must be passed. There must be a better than even chance of conviction (seems little doubt) and it must be in the public interest to prosecute (more debatable). Suppose he were 70 and not 75 and with 50% of the health issue your describe? What then?

Press and social media outrage / sob stories might work. Or they might make the council more determined. Who knows?

cannugec5

How much is the FPN - I note the signage says “up to” £120 ? 

Ectophile

spendsmartsage said:

Momanns said:

Contact your MP asap and might be one local press would be interested in

There were a couple of recent stories about a similar case. I can't seem to post links, but you can find it if you search: “Derby woman left 'disgusted' after bird-feeding fine”, “Derby: Woman loses appeal against £150 bird feeding fine”.

The only appeal was to the city council itself, according to that news article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c033r3l7k71o

That sets absolutely no legal precedent.

My opinion, and I am not a lawyer, is that littering is defined as dropping something and leaving it.  And you can't leave bread if the birds have already eaten it by the time you get up to leave.

HillStreetBlues

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/council-drops-case-against-teenager-12219646

A teen refuse to pay the fine so went to court,  the council then dropped the case.

TELLIT01

The person dropping the bread did leave it, in that they didn't pick up what they had dropped.

I was in town this afternoon, after my previous post.  Walking through the pedestrianised area I came across a horde of pigeons pecking away madly at the ground.  Somebody had just thrown a load of bread on the floor.  Kids ran towards the pigeons which promptly flew away leaving multiple calling cards in their wake.  Throwing bread for them may or may not be considered a problem, what happened when the birds took off is.

sheramber

If you want to comaplin about the lack of signs at one entrance then contact the local councillor.

Jumblebumble

spendsmartsage said:

Okell said:

Further to my earlier post, the presence or absence of signs and/or warnings is irrelevant.  Your father - and everybody else - is presumed to be aware that littering is a criminal offence.  Just like any other criminal offence that you don't need to be warned not to commit.

I think your only argument would be that your father had not "left" either the litter or the location.  But, personally, I don't think that would succeed.  If he'd picked the bread up before it had been eaten he might have been able to say that he hadn't left it.  But he didn't pick it up.  He left it for the pigeons to eat it.

I think he'd be better off just paying the FPN

Contacting his MP would be a waste of time and the MP can't do anything anyway.

If you contact the press you might find that more people approve of the ban on feeding the pigeons than don't...

Looking up this kind of thing online, I did notice a lot of those kind of comments agreeing with the authorities too. I don't necessarily disagree with many of them either. It's just that in this instance, and it might be because it's my father so I can't see things as clear, I struggle to see how this is worthy of such an offence. Elderly man, uses a walking stick, encouraged by doctors to regularly take a walk, needs to sit down at a park bench to regain his breath, undertakes a simple pleasure of feeding some birds for a minute or two with a very small amount of bread before proceeding to walk back home. A completely innocent action that apparently merits not a warning but an immediate £150 fine.

I appreciate the advice and it's helped to clarify things for me, particularly the strength of any kind of arguments I might make if I decided to take things further. I've decided to listen to my father's repeated requests and pay the fine and move on. Thanks.

To be fair our local park is plagued with fools who drop huge amounts of bread which  plays havoc with our dogs especially if the bread is going mouldy.
I would really be happy if they were fined.

GrubbyGirl_2

I think I'd try and get the local paper or TV news to take it up

Skiddaw1

The expression 'low hanging fruit' springs to mind.

Personally, I think the enforcement officers having a quiet word with your father to explain the policy and to advise him not to feed the birds again would have been quite sufficient. I'd involve his local councillor/MP if it were me. But that's just my opinion obviously.