A YOUNG mum has been ordered to pay nearly £400 - for leaving her wheelie bin in the wrong place.

Holly Dutton, 26, of Grace Street, Horwich, failed to pay a £100 fixed penalty notice issued for leaving the bin in the alleyway behind her house in July.

She has been now been fined £130 and ordered to pay £215 costs, plus a £15 surcharge towards a fund for victims of crime, after the case was heard by Bolton magistrates.

Council bosses claim people who do not bring their bins into their back yards between collection times attract arsonists, and the prosecution is the first in a crackdown across Horwich.

Stunned

Miss Dutton, who has two young boys, said she was stunned by the prosecution.

The agency carer admitted being fined £100 by a council worker who called at her home in August.

But she says she appealed against the fine at Horwich Town Hall days later - and only learned the matter had got to court last night when approached by the M.E.N.

Miss Dutton, who shares the terraced property with her partner, accounts clerk Chris Heaton, 26, said: "This has come out of the blue. It looks to us like a council money-making scheme that deliberately targets poorer families in smaller properties."

Bolton council issued the fine in August, saying Miss Dutton ignored a warning of the `legal requirement to bring a wheelie bin back within the boundary of a property between collections'.

Miss Dutton said: "The only warning we ever got was about recycling.

"We had kept the bin in the ginnel for seven years because the yard is only 8ft by 4ft and if you keep rubbish there it starts to stink."

Bolton council said that Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it is an offence to leave a bin outside a property between collections. Householders face a fixed penalty fine of £100 or prosecution if they fail to pay up. Fines are reduced to £75 if paid within 10 days.

Council spokeswoman Elaine Sherrington said: "We don't take the decision to prosecute lightly. This case shows that ignoring our advice and failing to act on a fixed penalty notice could be pursued through the courts."

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