Whilst I concur that we all have a part to play as individuals in keeping our areas nice and clean, occasionally there comes along a story that shows the inflexibility of both local councils and especially the police when it comes to issues of civic tidiness. This case in particular shows that it may represent a situation where a council and a police force go in hard to a person in genuine need where there was no need to do so.
According to a report in the Northern Echo, a single mother of five children, who was refused a new wheelie bin by her local council, Durham, to replace a bin that was stolen and instead put her rubbish out in black bags, was arrested, charged and brought to court by Durham police. The report said that the mother, Stacey Storey aged 31, asked the council to replace the stolen wheelie bin but the council refused and ordered her to pay for a new one. Ms Storie was not in a financial position to afford a new wheelie bin at that point in time and instead put her rubbish out in black bags.
The black bags were spotted by a council jobsworth, a ‘neighbourhood warden’, who apparently rummaged through the bags and found out that it was linked to Ms Storey. The warden issued Ms Storie with a warning letter and told her to replace the bin. The warden went back a few weeks later, the Northern Echo does not specify how many weeks, and found that the wheelie bin had not been replaced and that there were black dustbin bags outside Ms Storie’s property. The council jobsworth then issued Ms Storie with a £400 fixed penalty notice.
Now of course with five children and probably very little money coming in, Ms Storie was probably in no position to pay for a new wheelie bin let alone a £400 fine, she was also probably incredibly busy with five kids. This is one case where I’m prepared to believe that there are major mitigating circumstances in this case and that Ms Storie should have been helped and not punished. Therefore when Durham council, eager for their pound of flesh from Ms Storie who didn’t pay the fine, they summonsed her and when she didn’t attend the court, Durham council demanded that Durham Police’s ‘finest’, arrest Ms Storie, which they did.
Ms Storie was taken to Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court and convicted of ‘depositing of controlled waste on land without a permit’. The use of the term ‘controlled waste’ may lead the reader to believe that there was something nasty in the bags, but the term ‘controlled waste’ can apply to absolutely anything, including normal household refuse.
The District Judge, Roger Lowe sentenced Ms Storie to a conditional discharge for twelve months and interestingly asked the local authority why Ms Storie was not given more help to replace the bin? He could not see why the ‘neighbourhood warden’ did not offer more help to Ms Storie in replacing the bin. I agree with the judge on this occasion. The council jobsworth and indeed the council themselves offered zero help to Ms Storie and instead embarked on a campaign of fines and harassment. The local council should have helped and not penalised this woman, whom it is plain to see they have treated like scum. There’s lots that they could have done. The council could have swallowed the £60 cost of a wheelie bin and avoided all this issue. Ms Storie could have been referred to one of the many charities such as Turn2Us or the Salvation Army or Family Action in order to get her a wheelie bin instead of being prosecuted. That would have been the more sensible and humane action for the council and the police to take here but sadly I’ve long come to expect anything but humanity from either councils or the police.
This is also one of those cases where Durham Police should have used their discretion and refused the demand by the council for an arrest. They should have looked at the case and seen that this woman was clearly not being offered the help that should have been given and which was required and refused to carry out this blatantly petty and vindictive arrest request.
Ms Storie was, up until this incident, a person of good character with no previous convictions and who had never seen the inside of a courtroom before. She tried to make arrangements to get the rubbish taken away by a third party but that person let Ms Storie down. This is a situation that could happen to any of us. Any one of us could fall foul of some council jobsworth over an overfilled bin or the wrong sort of bin, try to make amends but fail. It’s not as if Ms Storie made no effort to solve the problem, she did, but that wasn’t enough for Durham council. Their inflexible and inhumane attitude made a relatively easily solved problem a whole lot worse.
Durham council made a statement about this case and it was, as expected, full of mealy mouthed excuses and victim blaming. Durham council said:
After the hearing, Oliver Sherratt, Durham County Council’s head of environment, said: “Where possible, we will always try an education approach first as in this instance where on the first offence, a duty of care warning letter rather than a fine was issued, and the resident advised that she needed to contact the council for a new bin.
“However, it was disappointing to see more rubbish left out when we returned weeks later.
“Regrettably, we had to make the difficult decision to charge £20 to replace lost or stolen bins in April 2011 following an unprecedented reduction in government funding.”
I have to disagree with Mr Sherratt here. I see no evidence from the Northern Echo story that this woman was offered any practical help whatsoever. There was no recognition of the woman’s individual circumstances which should have meant that the council replaced her bin for free or at the very least referred Ms Storie to another agency or charity that might have helped. It doesn’t seem to me that there has been any ‘education approach’ to this problem, it’s all been enforcement as far as I can see. As for the council pleading poverty then I’m afraid that is total and utter bullshit. Durham council is one that has after all earmarked £3million for ‘climate change’ activities and whose financial report seems overly concerned about how budget ‘cuts’ will affect their ‘inequalities’ i.e. ‘diversity’ policies, yet claim they cannot afford to replace stolen wheelie bins. Something is not right with Durham council and is also not right with Durham police for letting this case go as far as it did.
Residents of Durham should quite rightly be angered at this case which involves a council with plenty of money to spend of fripperies but not in assisting residents to keep their area clean. What we could be seeing with Durham council is excessive amounts of bunce being shoved in the direction of the middle class Left and their concerns such as ‘climate change’ and ‘diversity’, whilst ordinary people, including those who are struggling, subjected to vicious, petty minded and inflexible ‘enforcement’.
I hate to see situations where the honest poor and vulnerable are treated like dirt by the State and this looks very much like one of those cases.
“…I hate to see situations where the honest poor and vulnerable are treated like dirt by the State…”
Me too, but it seems par for the course with the minority/woke appeasing jobsworths in local government, and it is inevitable that they fall back on the Nuremberg defence.
You haven’t asked the right question of Durham CUNcil, and that is: How much did all of this bullying vidictiveness cost out of those “scarce resources” you bleat about, compared with replacing her bin? An FOI to said CUNcil would be most enlightening.
The answer was pretty self explanatory. A wheelie bin, new from a wheelie bin supplier is £60 but the cost of hassling this poor woman must have run into thousands. It’s typical of local councils to waste so much money on such a petty hounding of this lady when there was an alternative which was either replacing her bin or referring her to a charity that might have been able to help.
I have just submitted this FOI request to Durham Council.
As a former London Borough Councillor, Having read this article with great interest, https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18867667.single-mother-arrested-front-children-rubbish-bags/ could you please supply the following information:-
1. How much did Durham Council spend on retaining legal services for this case?
2. How many man-hours of officer time was involved to investigate, enforce and progress this case?
3. How many officers from inspector to director level were involved, however peripherally?
4. Based on average salary, what was the approximate cost of the officer hours put in for this case?
And finally;-
5. What is the cost to Durham Council, of a standard wheelie bin?
In the interests of clarity and transparency, required under the Code of Conduct for Local Authorities, Could you, in addition to the aforementioned, please give me, on a single line the total cost of your enforcement action, less the cost of the wheelie-bin. For example £15,000 – £40 = £14,960
Many thanks for your help. I look forward to your reply within the next statutory 30 days
Jeremy Zeid
Former Councillor – London Borough of Harrow (Kenton West)
As a former London Borough Councillor, Having read this article with great interest, https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/18867667.single-mother-arrested-front-children-rubbish-bags/ could you please supply the following information:-
1. How much did Durham Council spend on retaining legal services for this case?
2. How many man-hours of officer time was involved to investigate, enforce and progress this case?
3. How many officers from inspector to director level were involved, however peripherally?
4. Based on average salary, what was the approximate cost of the officer hours put in for this case?
And finally;-
5. What is the cost to Durham Council, of a standard wheelie bin?
In the interests of clarity and transparency, required under the Code of Conduct for Local Authorities, Could you, in addition to the aforementioned, please give me, on a single line the total cost of your enforcement action, less the cost of the wheelie-bin. For example £15,000 – £40 = £14,960
Many thanks for your help. I look forward to your reply within the next statutory 30 days
Jeremy Zeid
Former Councillor – London Borough of Harrow (Kenton West)
BTW, That is the text of the FOI I have just submitted to Durham CUNcil. I may put in a similar request to Durham Gestaplods.
Excellent! Very well worded. I also believe that the Durham Stasi have a question to answer about this as it was plainly a civil matter and one that could have been avoided had the council behaved differently. Surely on this occasion Durham police could have exercised discretion and refused the council’s request. I dread to think how much this has cost in legal fees and in staff time for Durham Council? I checked the price of a wheelie bin with a wheelie bin company and they start at about 60 quid for a standard sized bin. Surely the council could have taken the cost of this replacement wheelie bin out of their bloated ‘climate change’ budget, a budget that the council themselves admit is mostly for leveraging future grants for ‘climate change’ boondogles?
I cannot understand why the police were involved. Surely this was a PRIVATE matter, NOT CRIMINAL. Or are Local Government Authorities bye-laws in fact Laws of the land? Were they approved by Parliament? I need clarity on this.
John. The police are increasingly over-reaching their powers, relying on the fact that most of us don’t have a clue. Also by going after soft targets, it gives the illusion of activity to disguise the otherwise lamentable clear-up rates and inflate the stats for the same reason. Far easier than going after real crimes, especially ones that may see them being called “racist” or “phobic”, the treat of riots, or that politically may drastically hit those all important corrupt, unverifiable, mass Muslim mosque-whipped postal votes in those small, high density rotten-borough, mainly Labour constituencies..
To keep you up to date: Just received this initial response from Durham Council.
I’ll keep you posted.
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