Sir, - Some months ago I received a £50 fine from Bray Urban District Council for committing an offence under Section 3 (1) of the Litter Pollution Act 1997. I was alleged to have dumped litter, namely some items of typed business correspondence with my name and address on them.
I inspected the items in question, recognised them to be my own, and stated that I would not pay the fine because the items had been removed without my permission from a purchased official BUDC refuse bag outside my gate on the designated weekly morning of collection. I refused to be browbeaten into telling lies, and gave a written submission outlining the facts, having been told my only option was to do so.
Recently, after a lapse of six months, I received a summons to court, which I chose to settle out of court by paying the (pounds 50, since I was informed that several people in similar situations were deemed liable and had to pay fines in court, even though items of litter had been removed from their own refuse without their express permission either.
The logic follows that if some thug with a petty grudge types the name and address of a person on a piece of paper, mixes it up with any amount of miscellaneous objects and substances and drops the whole lot in a public place, it could actually result in somebody innocent being convicted in court of committing an offence under the Litter Pollution Act 1997. I have forfeited £50 for an offence I never committed, which as a hard-pressed taxpayer I bitterly resent.
The irony of all this is that Bray District Council broke the very Litter Pollution Act it seeks to implement when it failed miserably in the early part of this year to fulfil its municipal obligation by temporarily ceasing to provide any weekly refuse collection service to the town.
So much for environmental good example! What utter hypocrisy! - Yours, etc.,
John J Kelly, Westfield Park, Bray, Co Wicklow.