What a sour lot: Girl, 5, fined £150 for selling lemonade

SHE only wanted to make a few pennies by selling lemonade to festival revellers.

But officials made Andre Spicer’s daughter’s world go pop when they fined her £150 for ‘trading without a permit’.

The five-year-old was left in tears when the staff from Tower Hamlets Council shut down her makeshift stall near her home in East London.

Mr Spicer, a professor at City University, said that his daughter, who has not been named, was upset by the incident, saying: ‘I’ve done a bad thing.’

She had been selling one large cup of the homemade fizzy drink for £1 and a small one for 50p to families heading to the local Lovebox music fes- tival at the weekend. But four officers marched up to her stand just 30 minutes after it had been set up and read out a legal letter to the little girl and her father for selling the drink.

‘She was very upset because she was proud of selling it,’ said Mr Spicer. ‘This really soured the experience.’

He said he tried to lift his daughter by saying she could get a permit and ‘have a stall another day’. But she said that it was ‘too scary’ and did not want to any more.

He criticised the council for its ‘overzealous way of applying the rules’. Mr Spicer said that it was ‘just a five-year-old trying to sell lemonade’ and warned the incident was an example of how it budding female entrepreneurs are being ‘discouraged’.

The council apologised for the upset caused and revoked the fine. A spokesman said officers were expected to ‘show common sense’.

‘I’ve done a bad thing’