Mum stunned by £50 fine for feeding pigeons

Claire Jenkins, a 36-year-old from Gowerton in South Wales, was outraged when a warden fined her £50 for feeding the birds. She had been out shopping in Swansea with her son. They bought a burger and a hot dog for lunch, and fed some of the bread to the pigeons. It was then that the warden struck.

The pair ate their lunch sitting on a bench, and left bits of the buns behind for the birds. She told The South Wales Evening Post: "We walked to a bin to put our napkins in and when we turned around a warden said it was classified as litter."

He gave her an on-the-spot fine of £50, and said it must be paid within a week or it will rise to £75. She said she was still trying to decide whether to appeal.

The Sun reported that the council stood by the fine, saying: "We launched a campaign to encourage the public to put leftover food in the bin and not throw it on the ground for birds. This was following a request by city centre businesses whose customers say they have been plagued by seagulls that are causing a nuisance, particularly when people are consuming food." He said there were plenty of posters up in the city centre advertising the policy.
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Feeding fines

Claire is not alone. In August last year Swansea wardens were in the news again for the same thing. A ballet student had thrown bread out of the window of her flat for the birds, and when a warden spotted her, he fined her £50.

This isn't just an issue in Swansea either. In May last year a woman from Sidmouth in Devon was fined £80 for feeding peanuts to pigeons, a woman from Gwent was fined £125 by private security guards for throwing a piece of bread roll out of her window, and a year earlier a woman from Bolton was fined £75 for feeding a scrap of leftover pasty to a pigeon.

Most of these fines are on-the-spot demands for sums that are painful, but not jaw-dropping. In October this year, however, one woman was fined £1,000 for feeding birds. Brenda Hawkins, a 74-year-old from North Wales, had been feeding birds in her back garden. Her neighbours complained, and the council warned her to stop. When she ignored them they took her to court - where she was slapped with the fine.

But perhaps the harshest penalty was faced by John Wilkinson of Cavendish Road in Morecambe. He became known as 'Pigeon man' because he fed flocks of birds outside his home - and elsewhere in the town. He was given an ASBO in December 2012 and told to stop feeding the birds because he was upsetting the neighbours. He continued to do so on four occasions. First he was fined, and then in May 2014 he was jailed for four weeks.