A mum was fined £400 for leaving rubbish in a box even though there were no bins nearby after a council accused her of fly-tipping.
McDonald's worker Chloe Rhodes was given a penalty notice for leaving rubbish in the alley behind her Stoke-on-Trent home while she waited for a wheelie bin to be delivered.
After reading about her plight, a kind-hearted benefactor stepped in to pay the fine, Stoke-on-Trent Live reports.
The 23-year-old was fined just before Christmas, the day before her bins were delivered.
After reading about Chloe's plight, a Good Samaritan - who wishes to remain anonymous - offered to stump up the £400 penalty.
The generous stranger, who works for a Canadian bank, has now cleared the debt, leaving Chloe "gobsmacked" by his generosity.
Speaking to StokeonTrentLive, he said: "I came across the story by accident and I was appalled at the circumstances.
"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.
"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."
Chloe, who lives at the Oldfield Street property with her four-year-old son Logan, was left speechless by the gesture. She said: "I'm so grateful that someone who I don't even know was willing to pay the fine for me. I'm gobsmacked.
"When I heard, I just wanted to cry. I have been so stressed out, I can't even describe what a relief it was, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I'm so thankful."
Stoke-on-Trent City Council has defended the fine issued to Chloe, insisting the Oldfield Street area is one of the worst in the city for fly-tipping.
Councillor Carl Edwards, cabinet member for housing and the environment, said: "Unfortunately, this particular area of Fenton suffers from significant issues of rubbish being fly-tipped by people who do not take responsibility for their waste and are content to blight their communities.
"We know that the vast majority of residents want something to be done about this and we work within the community to support them. In 2021, we received 81 requests to remove fly-tipped rubbish in the area, and issued 35 fines for a variety of waste offences.
“This is time, resource and public money that we would much rather be spending on other services that make a difference across the whole city than sadly having to clean up for people who won’t clean up for themselves. We would much prefer not to be taking action and the minority of people who feel the need to fly-tip their rubbish to not do so.
“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.”
