'I was fined £100 for a poo my dog didn't do'

Paula said the enforcement officer was "polite but firm" in issuing the fine

A woman has said she was fined "for a poo my dog didn't do" after being issued a £100 penalty for walking her Welsh Springer Spaniel without a waste bag.

Paula said she was stopped by a council officer in Northampton town centre and fined because she had forgotten to bring a dog poo bag.

She was one of hundreds of people who shared her story through Your Voice, Your BBC News with their experiences in response to coverage of a woman in west London being fined £150 for pouring coffee down a road gully.

Paula, and others who contacted BBC News, called on councils to issue warnings before fines on lesser-known rules.

"She'd already been out for her business that day and it was a very short walk through the town centre so I knew that she wasn't going to do anything," Paula said.

"Unusually, I didn't have any in any of my pockets, and so I was unable to say that I had a poo bag with me.

"So what happened? I was fined on the spot, £100 for a poo she didn't do."

Paula, who preferred not to share her surname, said she knew it was a legal requirement to clean up after dogs but not any rule about carrying bags.

"I honestly thought that I would be given words of advice, told off, told what the law was so that I knew for next time, but there was no movement," she added.

The dog owner said the enforcement officer was "polite, but very firm," and felt as though she was an easy target.

A West Northamptonshire Council spokesperson said: "It's really important that if people walk their dogs in a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) area they have the means to pick up after them in case they foul in a public area."

PSPOs were established in 2014 and let councils set local rules to tackle community issues. Breaching one without a reasonable excuse is an offence.

The council spokesperson added that officers will fine dog walkers who do not have a means of cleaning up, as part of requirements of the PSPO.

Victoria says enforcement officers should be directly employed by the council for added accountability

In west London, Victoria said she was accused of fly-tipping after an unopened envelope with her name was found in an alley near her home.

"It said that it was the equivalent of being interviewed under caution by the police," she said.

"I was shaking. I thought I was going to vomit. I burst into tears."

Victoria responded to the the council letter to say she had never seen the envelope and at that time the area's regular postal worker was away and some post was being misdelivered.

"I did it over the weekend because I was so stressed about it," she said.

"Then through the post, probably about eight days later, I got a fixed penalty notice for £400."

Victoria said she paid the £400 to avoid the sum rising to £600, but later had the fine cancelled and refunded after contacting her local councillor.

"If any human had really considered it, I don't think they would think one letter constituted fly-tipping and a £400 fine," she said.

'Incorrectly issued'

She said she was "really upset" by the process and was concerned that others without the money to pay could face serious hardship.

An Ealing Council spokesperson said they had followed the "usual process" of locating the parcel in a fly tip which contained the resident's details, and invited them to provide an explanation and issued a fine.

The added the fine was incorrectly issued and apologised to Ms Wells.

Kleo Papas said he was "gobsmacked" when issued with the fine over a strawberry stalk

In Birmingham, Kleo Papas said he was fined £100 after dropping a strawberry stalk down a roadside drain during the city's bin strike.

The 58-year-old, who lives in London but was on a work trip, told BBC News his colleague offered him the strawberry.

"I gratefully took one, popped it in my mouth, pulled out the stalk, looked around for a litter bin. There wasn't one, but there was a drain. I popped it in the drain," he said.

"Then I hear, 'I got all that on camera' and I looked up and it was an enforcement officer from the council."

Mr Papas said he was "gobsmacked" it had "constituted some kind of infraction".

He said he thought that since it was organic material it would be fine to go down the drain with the likes of leaves.

"If I'd thought that constituted littering, I would have just put it in my pocket," he said.

He said the incident took place amid piles of uncollected rubbish during Birmingham's bin strike.

A strike by waste disposal workers has uncollected rubbish piles across Birmingham

"There was a pongy odour all over the city because rubbish had been piling up uncollected for weeks.

"In that context, to throw a strawberry stalk down a drain shouldn't really count as an infraction."

After appealing unsuccessfully, he paid the £100 fine but said he felt the enforcement was excessive.

A Birmingham City Council spokesperson said: "We cannot find any record of Mr Papas receiving a FPN for disposing of a strawberry stalk."