This is the story of an heroic struggle for justice against the rubbish-bin Stasi and a rapacious Labour council.
In this case, the tragic victim happens to be our youngest son, just turned 26, but I suspect countless readers all over the land will have suffered similar experiences.
Our boy's tale begins three months ago, just after he flew the family nest to set up home with his eldest brother and a friend in a cramped, cheerless flat above a Turkish mini-market in North-East London.
By the standards of the capital, the rent of £500 per month for each of them was dirt cheap.
But then if you saw their living quarters, you would understand why. Beggars can't be choosers, however, and though our boys are laden with academic honours, this was the most they could afford on their meagre and irregular wages from casual work.
Harry arrived in the people's republic of Walthamstow full of good intentions to be a responsible citizen and he took the trouble to find out that rubbish is collected on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (stock image)
Anyway, our Harry arrived in the people's republic of Walthamstow full of good intentions to be a responsible citizen and make the best of his first real taste of independence since his university days.
To that end, he took the trouble to find out that rubbish is collected in his street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (I know — lucky lads to have three bin days, where so many these days have to make do with one a fortnight or even fewer).
So taking the lead from his new neighbours — traders and residents alike — Harry put out the rubbish for the first time at 10.30pm on the night of Tuesday, April 23, for collection the following morning.
Alas, the poor boy hadn't yet mastered the complicated regulations governing refuse collection in the Labour-controlled borough of Waltham Forest.
Under these, if I understand them correctly, most residents are permitted to leave their bins out overnight, to be ready for collection 'by 6am' on the appointed day.
Unbeknownst to our son, however, different rules apply to those living in flats over shops.
As it eventually turned out, these residents must put out their rubbish in a strict time-window between six o'clock and nine o'clock in the morning. Very few in his street seemed to be aware of this, but there you go. Rules is rules.
The next thing Harry knew, he was served with a fixed-penalty notice (FPN) demanding £150 within 14 days, and warned that non-payment could result in prosecution in a magistrates' court and a £2,500 fine.
An 'authorised officer' of Waltham Forest Council, he was told, had 'reason to believe' he had committed an offence under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (as amended) and the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
Creepily, this officer's reason for thinking Harry responsible was that he had gone through the refuse and found a form on which our son had notified his bank of his change of address.
Attached to the penalty notice was a photograph of this along with two of the offending rubbish bags. What a sinister way to welcome a new resident to the borough!
I don't know about you, but I shudder to live in a country where official snoopers are empowered to paw through refuse to find discarded documents containing our bank details.
Well, a penalty of £150 may not sound like a life-changing sum to those of us lucky enough to have well-paid jobs.
But believe me, to an agency teaching assistant such as Harry, eking out his earnings with occasional bar work on the minimum wage, it was a king's ransom — by far the greater part of his monthly disposable income.
As for the threat of a £2,500 fine for non-payment, this seemed grossly disproportionate for the mistake of putting out his rubbish a few hours too early, when he was trying to do the Right Thing. Indeed, it's the sort of punishment dished out these days to burglars and violent offenders.
But the Utley boys, I'm proud to say, have never been ones to take a blatant injustice lying down.
At this point, his flatmate brother George stepped in, ringing the council's Administrative Coordinator (search me) to appeal against the FPN. He was told the penalty would be put on hold, pending an investigation.
Next, he wrote to Kingdom, the private firm contracted by the council to carry out littering enforcement services.
In a politely worded email, he explained that Harry and he were new arrivals in the borough who had made an honest mistake. 'Please do not fine us, we were not trying to break the law,' he wrote, adding: 'If you could just tell us the right times of day we should be putting our bins on the streets, we will be able to stick to that in future.'
No reply. So he tried again, pleading: 'All we need to know is when we should take our rubbish out and where we should leave it. Instead of providing that information, you have rummaged through our waste and now we have a £150 fine to pay . . .
'This could have been resolved so much more civilly. We still need the information, please.'
Still no reply. So George turned to Walthamstow's Labour MP, Stella Creasy, who turns out to be something of a heroine of this saga.
Walthamstow's Labour MP, Stella Creasy, turns out to be something of a heroine of this saga
Full of sympathy, she told him that Harry's was a very familiar story, adding the shocking information that since winning the contract, Kingdom had issued more than 17,000 penalty notices, of which 2,520 were for this kind of offence.
She also raised his concerns with Clyde Loakes, the councillor responsible for overseeing the contract.
I ask you, if 17,000 people in a single London borough have incurred fines for breaches of rubbish-related rules, isn't it pretty clear that those rules are immensely confusing?
Nor do you have to be a brilliant mathematician to work out that 17,000 times £150 amounts to a nice little earner for the local authority, which has a powerful vested interest in keeping the regulations obscure and fining as many people as possible.
Indeed, if you think it's baffling enough to have a separate set of bin-collection rules for people who live in flats above shops, you should try looking up Waltham Forest's instructions on recycling.
On the council website, when it's working, you will find rules on which bin or recycling dump to use for dozens of different types of rubbish. I would tell you precisely how many, except that at the time of writing, the website has crashed for the umpteenth time.
And there was I, thinking Mrs U and I had troubles enough in Labour-controlled Lambeth, with our six separate bins (one for plastic, paper, certain metals etc, one for non-recyclables, one for kitchen slops, two for garden waste and another under the sink for compostable uncooked food — or make that seven, if you include the compost bin in the garden).
Enough to say that, like countless others, I warmly welcome this week's announcement of a crackdown on the chaos of recycling.
Within four years, we are told, all councils will have to adopt standardised rules in place of 39 different sets enforced throughout the UK. All I plead is this: just make them simple.
As for Harry's appeal against his fine, I fear that despite Ms Creasy's best efforts, the boy had no joy from a flint-hearted Cllr Loakes.
Nor from Lauren Mousdell, Waltham Forest's Local Authority Support Remote Administrator, LA Support (no, really, that's her title).
She has written saying: 'I am satisfied that the Fixed Penalty Notice was issued correctly . . . Therefore your appeal has been declined.'
Though sorely tempted to pursue this case all the way to the Supreme Court, like the Winslow Boy of Terence Rattigan's play, our Harry has admitted defeat and coughed up. Or rather, his dad has taken pity on him and paid the cruelly unjust fine for him.
But a final footnote. George tells me that on Monday morning this week, he diligently put out the rubbish at 8.30am, in the approved time-frame between six and nine. It was not collected until 2am on Tuesday.
Aren't there times when you just want to scream?
link
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/tom-utley-rubbish-bin-stasi-and-a-creepy-official-who-stung-my-son-for-150/
News Photo TOM UTLEY: Rubbish-bin Stasi and a creepy official who stung my son for £150
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