Non-smoking man fined for cigarette butt stuck to shoe

A pensioner has been slapped with a £75 fine for dropping a cigarette end — even though he does not smoke. Ken Morris received a letter through the post from Neath Port Talbot Council telling him he had been seen throwing the offending butt in a shopping centre car park the previous day.

Seventy-two-year-old Mr Morris said the cigarette end must have got stuck to his shoe and been carried into his car — he threw it on the ground and 24 hours later the demand for cash arrived on his door mat. He said: "I am guilty. I did throw the cigarette butt on the floor, so I put my hands up and paid the fine straight away.



"I have always been totally against dropping litter and always told my kids not to do it — I did it subconsciously." Mr Morris, from Heol y Llwynau, Trebanos, was caught in Pontardawe Retail Park car park. The letter which Mr Morris received on the morning of April 18 said he had been seen throwing a cigarette end at 10.01am on April 17 before immediately driving off.

Mr Morris said he often shakes his car mats outside, but will be more careful in future and wanted to warn others to do the same. "I don't want the same thing to happen to anyone else," he said. Mr Morris's wife, Sonia, 72, said the council should clean up their streets. "It is their fault the cigarette butt was on my husband's shoe in the first place," she said.