I was fined £400 for leaving my rubbish in a box as the council didn’t give me a bin – now a stranger has paid the fine
A SINGLE mum was fined for leaving her rubbish in a box after the council didn't give her a bin - and now a stranger has paid the fine.
Chloe Rhodes, 23, was hit with a £400 fine for fly-tipping after putting household rubbish in a cardboard box and leaving it out the front of her house.
Stoke-on-Trent council told her she will be taken to court if she does not pay.
The mum, who lives at the Oldfield Street property with her four-year-old son Logan, was left speechless by the gesture.
Now, a kind stranger, who does not wish to be identified, has paid the fine on her behalf.
Chloe, from Fenton, told : "I'm so grateful that someone who I don't even know was willing to pay the fine for me. I'm gobsmacked."
When she heard the news, she wanted to cry and says she has been stressed out over the ordeal.
She said: "I can't even describe what a relief it was, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I'm so thankful."
The Good Samaritan, 49, who works for a Canadian bank, said they remembered what it was like to be working hard without a lot of reward.
She said: "Chloe’s situation was quite understandable given that she had just moved in, and the size of the fine in relation to the offence seemed disproportionate.
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"The fact that she is a young single mother and works part-time at McDonald's just made it worse - she’s already struggling to get by and a kick in the teeth like this won’t help.
"I am 49 but I vividly remember working at difficult jobs that didn’t pay me very much when I was her age, and I wasn’t a single mother - something like this over a simple bit of rubbish would have been devastating.
"I’m also surprised that the council wasn’t willing to consider the mitigating circumstances. It just makes them look like they don’t have any humanity, and at Christmas no less."
Stoke-on-Trent Council said the area is one of the city's worst areas for fly-tipping.
A spokesman said during 2021 the council received 81 requests to remove fly-tipped rubbish in the area, and issued 35 fines for various waste offences in Fenton.
They said: “In this particular case, this matter is still in progress so it is not appropriate to talk in more detail about it.
"We give detailed information to residents who report a lost or stolen wheelie bin about how they can correctly present their waste on the day of collection until the wheelie bin is delivered.”