A woman who was fined £614 after being caught fly-tipping in her Fiat Punto has taken to Facebook to defend herself - claiming that she was justified in her actions because 'the tip was shut'.
Keighley Whyte was caught red-handed dumping her waste on the side of the road in Manchester on June 11, 2020 by council CCTV cameras.
She was caught on camera driving onto New Viaduct Street - next to the Etihad football stadium - before parking up and getting out of the car with two other females who dumped rubbish onto the side of the road before driving off.
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Waste management company Biffa launched an investigation into the incident, and eventually tracked Whyte down after cross-referencing her car’s registration plate along with some other identifiable evidence left behind in her rubbish.
Whyte initially failed to turn up for her court hearing regarding the incident, but she eventually pleaded guilty to fly-tipping at Manchester Magistrates' Court last Friday (March 4) after a warrant was issued for her arrest, the Manchester Evening News reports.
But despite pleading guilty to the incident and being handed a £614 fine by the courts as a result, Whyte has since spoken out about the incident and claimed that it wasn’t her fault- because the tip was shut.
Commenting underneath the MEN's story about the incident shared on Facebook, she said: "The tip was shut we was in the middle of the scamdemic I through [sic] a bit of cardboard with my name on and had to pay for 50 other peoples rubbish an all."
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She then replied to a reader's comment and said: "It was 2 years ago and exaggerated massively".
But locals were having none of her flimsy excuses and quickly shot them down, branding the fly-tipping incident as “disgusting.”
One wrote: "Why are you trying to justify breaking the law? Other people managed and didn't break the law.
"You were lucky with the £614 in fines, in some councils the fine could've been in the thousands and your Punto seized and crushed."
Another asked: "Genuine question not hating on you, you clearly know what you did was wrong, but if it was just a cardboard box why didn't you just flatten it and either put it in a bin or keep it to one side until you could get rid of it?"
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Manchester councillor Rabnawaz Akbar criticised Whyte's behaviour for causing an 'unnecessary cost to the council', saying: "This is an environmental crime that doesn’t make sense on any level.
“Not only is it an unnecessary cost to the council, and hence the taxpayer, it was an expensive way for this woman to get rid of rubbish when she could have taken it for free to a local tip.
"Once again, we want to send a message to anyone who thinks they can get away with blighting our environment, we will not tolerate fly-tipping in the city, and we will continue to bring prosecutions to court to show that this behaviour is not acceptable in our city."
Tom Sanders