I was fined £80 for pouring my coffee down the drain and putting cup in the bin
WHEN Sue Peckitt could drink no more of the takeaway coffee she had bought, she took what she thought was the most considerate and public-spirited way of disposing of it.
The pensioner went to put the cup in a litter bin, but only having first poured the unwanted liquid down a drain in the street to avoid making a mess of the bin.
However, Miss Peckitt, 6 , was shocked by what happened next – to her disbelief she was stopped by three council enforcement officers and issued with an £80 on-the-spot fine for littering.
When the retired civil servant appealed to the council in Ealing, West London, she was told the fine would not be revoked.
‘I am astonished by the whole process,’ said Miss Peckitt, who has lived in Ealing for 33 years. ‘I had bought a cup of coffee, it wasn’t very nice and I thought, “I want to get rid of this”.
‘So I poured it down the drain and then I started to walk to the bin to put the cup in the bin. The enforcement officers stopped me and said I was breaking the law, then I filled in all the forms and they fined me £80.’ Miss Peckitt accused the council and its staff of being over-zealous.
‘I think there is a big problem with litter but it is bizarre, I had put this coffee down the drain because it was the safe and environmentally friendly thing to do,’ she said. ‘The reason I didn’t dispose of the cup and the liquid in the bin was that I didn’t want to turn the contents of the bin into a soggy mess.’
Miss Peckitt’s attempts to get Ealing Council to withdraw the fine, which was imposed on her in November, initially fell on deaf ears.
But then a local website, GetWestLondon, heard about the bizarre incident.
The website approached the council for a comment on the story and officers conceded that the £80 fine would not be enforced.
A spokesman for Ealing Council said yesterday: ‘The council has investigated this particular case and will be dropping the fine originally issued.
‘Our priority is to make sure that the borough is clean and litter free and we apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused.’