A council has fined a non-smoker for dropping a cigarette in a village earlier than bungling officers realized she lived greater than 160 miles away.
Natalie Walton has been given a £75 Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN) and threatened with prosecution after being wrongly accused of littering in Swanscombe, Dartford, Kent.
However, the 31-year-old managed to show she was procuring at a B&M retailer and a Tesco grocery store in Staffordshire on October 29, the day of the offence.
Officials have been pressured to cancel his superb after seeing body-worn digicam footage exhibiting another person had dropped the cigarette.
The discover, dated November 12, stated a Dartford council officer had seen her “commit an offence” and warned she must pay a £75 superb or enchantment.
It provides: “As neither cost nor written objection has been obtained, you stay answerable for the crime and prosecution within the magistrates’ court docket can start in opposition to you instantly. If convicted, you might face a superb of as much as £2,500 for littering.”
Mrs Walton stated: “I hadn’t been to Kent for months. Dartford Council was making an attempt to superb me £75 for one thing I wasn’t even there to do.
“It’s only a bit weird. I used to be accused of smearing a cigarette in Swanscombe, which is actually extra absurd as I do not smoke and have by no means been to the deal with they claimed I used to be at.
“I really feel like an entire sufferer of fraud. Someone should have stolen my id or the town’s safety measures are so compromised that they are going to take my identify and deal with with none proof.”
A spokesperson for Dartford Council stated: “Our policing staff requested a present {photograph} of Ms Walton and, having obtained this, it was in comparison with the individual within the footage. It turned out to not be Mrs Walton and the FPN has now been cancelled.
