A medical student who twice dumped bags of rubbish in a Salford street feared she had dumped her career alongside the waste.
Charlotte Lynch of Conmere Square, Hulme, Manchester, hired a car to take nine large bin bags of waste to the tip but threw them into the street instead.
And when Salford City Council officers caught up with her she begged not to be prosecuted for the sake of her career in medicine and voluntary work with charities and offered to pay all costs and damages instead.
Miss Lynch, 33, pleaded guilty at Manchester Magistrates Court on Friday October 23 to two offences of illegally dumping waste contrary to Section 33 (I) and 33 (6) of the Environmental Protection Act, 1990.
She was fined £140 and ordered to pay costs and compensation of £772.58 along with a £20 victim surcharge.
The court heard that on Monday September 22, 2014, Salford City Council’s CCTV operators spotted a woman dumping six large bin bags out of a white Fiat car on Cottenham Lane just before midday.
Thirty minutes later the same car returned and circled the area before the same woman threw three large bags of rubbish onto the street. The bags were later ripped open by a passerby and the contents strewn across the street.
Environmental crime officers traced the hired car back to Miss Lynch. After officers tried to contact her she sent an email to the council saying how deeply sorry she was and that she fully understood it was a criminal offence to dump rubbish.
When interviewed by council officers Miss Lynch said the rubbish had been dumped on a path outside her house. En route to the tip one of the bags split open in the car and she drove to Cottenham Lane and dumped the rubbish.
Speaking after the case Deputy City Mayor, Councillor David Lancaster said: “Salford City Council spends thousands of pounds a year clearing up after people who carelessly dump rubbish in our streets. That’s money that could better be spent on services. I hope this case makes people think and treat our city with respect.”
