I was fined £550 by the council for fly-tipping… but it's physically impossible for me to be guilty | The Sun

A MAN was left astonished when he was fined £550 by a local council for fly-tipping as it was "physically impossible" for him to have done it.

Ben Cormack was accused by Newham Council of chucking rubbish into the street on two separate occasions in October.

However, he was stunned by the allegations as he was 640 miles away at the time of the supposed offences.

The one-time Newham resident had, in fact, moved to Bordeaux in the South of France to live with his girlfriend, and was out of the country when the alleged fly-tipping took place.

He only found out about the fines after coming back to his East London home, which he still owns, to pick up some things to take back with him across the Channel.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I have to pop to the UK every now and again, partly because I've been moving stuff and my family lives there. I just got these letters saying, 'we're fining you for fly-tipping'.

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"It's astonishing. It would have been physically impossible for me to be anywhere close to Newham when these offences occurred."

Despite providing proof he wasn't in the UK between October 10 and October 27, including flight tickets and his visa, Ben says the council won't budge.

He continued: "I understand fly-tipping is a big problem in Newham but there's rubbish on every street corner. I think it's important to get that problem sorted.

"But, on the other hand, I wasn't in the country and there's absolutely no way it could possibly be me.

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"I won't lie to you it's quite frightening. I'm hoping I can do something about it, it's just an awful situation and they're just not listening to me. It's an extortionate amount of money"

In the both cases, council officers claim to have seen Ben dumping cardboard boxes in the street.

The fines were reportedly sent to Ben on November 9, meaning that he has to pay £550 as he has not paid within the 10-day window for a reduced fine.

Failure to pay could see him taken to court on criminal charges.

Despite this, the outraged expat says he will not pay and will fight the council tooth and nail.

He fumed: "It's sort of okay for me because I have a good support network and I have a little bit of money tucked away in case of emergency.

"So if the worst comes to the worst I can deal with this but a lot of people aren't in a fortunate position. We're going through a cost of living crisis – a lot of people in East London are in poverty."

He added that the ordeal had left him "very angry" and slammed the council and its contractor as "hugely unethical".

A spokesperson for Newham Council said: "With just under 35,000 fly tip incidents reported in 2021, which cost over £1 million to clean up, we are committed to tracking down those who dump rubbish on Newham’s streets.

"Earlier this year, the council appointed Kingdom Local Authority Support to tackle the problem of litter on Newham’s streets. The contractor is adding capacity to the council’s internal team, providing further visible enforcement presence on Newham’s streets.

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"Residents have made it clear to the council that what they want to see is a cleaner, smarter borough. Newham Council has committed to spend £40 million over the next 4 years to keep streets and neighbourhoods clean and cut reported fly-tipping by 50 percent."

A spokesperson for UK Local Authority Support said: "As these are both ongoing cases, we would not be able to comment at this time."

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