72-year-old dumps ex's belongings outside her house - and is fined for fly tipping

Michael Hutchinson, a 72-year-old from Skegness, was wrestling with powerful emotions when he decided to drive some of his ex-wife's belongings round to her new house, and dump them outside with a note that these were "Some things you didn't steal." He was probably wrestling with similarly powerful emotions when he was slapped with a fly-tipping fine of more than £2,500.

The Daily Mail reported that Hutchinson's wife found the items outside her new home in June 2014. On realising that these were things from the home she had shared with Hutchinson - and that he had defaced them with green paint and solvent before dropping them off - she called North Kesteven District Council and made a fly tipping complaint.

ITV reported that Hutchinson was fined, but refused to pay because he insisted he was just returning his ex-wife's belongings. The council decided not to accept this argument - given that the items had been defaced and dumped in the middle of the night.

On the first day of his trial he changed his plea to guilty and was fined £625 and made to pay costs of £1,229. He was also ordered to pay his ex-wife £400 in compensation and a victim surcharge of £63.
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Acts of revenge

Hutchinson is not the first to want revenge after a relationship has ended. Over the years, scorned partners have come up with a variety of ways of getting their own back.

One woman, from Nuneaton, was the sole owner of the property she shared with her husband. Just before he left on a two-week trip to New York last year, she found a message on his phone from an American woman describing the reception he would get when he arrived. Once he left for the trip, she sold the house, so that by the time he got home, he found a group of students living in his former marital home.

Another woman, in Sheffield, spent hundreds of pounds hiring a digital billboard beside the Sheffield Parkway for the Wednesday morning rush hour. The 15ftx10ft sign read: "To my cheating husband Paul. You deserve each other. When you get home I won't be there. Enjoy your drive to work! Lisa."

Meanwhile, a woman in Michigan discovered that her boyfriend had been cheating on her. She had bought him a car, and his other girlfriend had paid to convert it into a Batmobile. However, as the car was still in her name, she sold it on Craigslist as 'Cheating Boyfriend Batmobile Nitro'.

As Hutchinson and plenty of others have found out, there can be a price to pay for revenge. Perhaps the most famous is economist Vicky Pryce, who in 2013 discovered that her husband Chris Huhne was leaving her for another woman on the day he told the press. In an act of revenge, she admitted to police that she had taken the points for him when he was caught for speeding. They were both jailed for perverting the course of justice.