A non-smoker was convicted at a magistrates court after Manchester city council accused him of dropping a cigarette butt in the city centre – even though he was hundreds of miles away, arranging a family funeral at the time.
Steve Jones, a 53-year-old teacher, lives 200 miles away in Teddington, Greater London, has only been to Manchester three times, and doesn’t smoke.
He told the council it was a case of mistaken identity and he had not dropped any litter, but the prosecution went ahead regardless in his absence, and he received a collection order in the post for £433, which included a fine and costs.
In July, he was sent a pack of evidence by Manchester city council, including a letter that said: “You have been charged with an offence of dropping litter”, and that a single justice procedure notice had been issued by the local authority in March.
It included a copy of a fixed-penalty notice for £150 for allegedly dropping litter outside the H&M store on Market Street on the afternoon of 14 December last year, which warned that the maximum fine would rise to £2,500 if the case ended up in the magistrates court.
The letter gave Jones 21 days to respond, warning that after that the court would hear the case in his absence, and he may be convicted and fined.
“I know I definitely wasn’t there, because my father-in-law died on 13 December and I was in Maidstone at a funeral directors,” Jones said.
The address on the fixed-penalty notice was one in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, and while the birthday on the ticket matched Jones’s, the year of birth was 10 years later.
“It’s got the incorrect date of birth, then it’s got a description of me, which says I have hat hair, which I found quite odd,” he said. “I don’t know what hat hair means, and I don’t really have that much hair, because my hair is sort of number two all over, because I don’t have much of it left.”
Jones contacted the council to explain their error, and his email correspondence with council officers “went back and forth and back and forth for ages”, he said, “and then they had to go and find the guy’s camera evidence and that took a few days, and then eventually they realised that it wasn’t me”.
“I don’t want this on my record,” Jones added, “and especially as I’m a teacher too. I don’t want to have this coming up in the future because someone’s not reading the correct details and not inputting the correct details.”
Jones said he initially struggled to get the council to provide a written apology, but had thought the matter was closed after he received an email apologising for the “administrative error”.
However, Jones then received a further letter in the post, dated 28 August, saying he had been convicted and fined. “I just find it incredible that I’ve been convicted in my absence,” he said. ‘“I mean, that sounds really serious.”
“I haven’t been convicted of anything [before],” he added, “so it’s like, blimey, that’s really heavy.”
Jones is also concerned the same thing might happen to somebody else who may not have the capacity to challenge the fine. “If that had been sent to someone who was elderly, or with other needs, I could see how that could be really quite stressful and really it could cause a lot of pain and agitation,” he said.
Jones said that in his initial dealings with the council he felt “annoyance, more than anything”, but now he was feeling “really frustrated” after the prosecution went ahead anyway.
“This is really serious for me,” he said, “and I don’t feel confident that they are going to overturn it.”
A Manchester city council spokesperson said: “The council is now doing everything in its power to have the conviction set aside at the next available opportunity to avoid any action being taken against Mr Jones to recover the penalty.
“We do, of course, apologise unreservedly for any distress or inconvenience caused to Mr Jones.”
