Episode 1 Dom on the Spot

Never before have so many on-the-spot fines been issued in Britain.

We're going to be following the men and women who hand out over

£30 million worth of tickets every month.

-Oops.

-Round here, they're an absolute blight.

I'm at 104 now.

-Wow.

-That is disgusting.

Just walk away.

For behaviour that's downright dangerous...

That was stupid for these sort of conditions, wasn't it?

..simply selfish...

-Look at the mess you've created in the street.

-How's that our fault?

Or just... What is he doing?

..well, plain silly.

What a doughnut. We'll be revealing the cost of their bad behaviour...

£100 fine.

Pays £260.

Ouch. And how this could affect you...

-I'll give him a punch.

-You want to see me kick off?

-The police are on it.

-What the...?

-Sir!

-The parking wardens are on it.

-They should be thanking us for being here.

And I'm on it. Careful, it's a 30mph limit here!

I'm Dom Littlewood,

and I'm On The Spot.

Today, it's detective time as we track down one of the men behind

-this monstrous mound.

-I hit them with my ace in the pack.

There are photographs of your truck outside your house.

You can run, but you can't hide from the litter patrol.

If you don't cooperate, I will call the police.

And I go out on the beat...

It's a serious injury, so you might not want to look.

..to find out why fines are so crucial to road safety.

His bike's there, and about ten metres away is his boot,

which makes me feel a bit queasy.

Every year, the police hand out over one million speeding and

road traffic fines. And with good reason.

We all know speed kills, but it's not just high speed.

If a pedestrian's hit at 40mph,

he's four times more likely to die than if he's hit at 30.

That's an eye-opener for you.

One of the people on the lookout for dodgy drivers going over the limit

is Wiltshire Police's Rich Hatch.

We are heading to a speeding black spot in a 30mph zone.

Speed gun at the ready,

anyone Rich catches going over the limit is risking a £100 fine.

Didn't even indicate when he was turning left.

-What a doughnut.

-There you go, 47.

Ooh.

We've been here three minutes, maybe two.

47 in a 30.

'That's more than 50% over the speed limit.

'Could this be his first fine of the day?'

Before we go any further at this point, obviously,

I'm going to deal with you for the offence of excess speed.

Rich informs the driver that his speed gun has captured the car driving at

47mph in a 30mph zone.

I'm wondering what the rush was.

-How long have you had the car?

-About two weeks.

OK, so you're still finding it quite a pleasure to drive?

Yeah, you don't realise how quick you're going.

The bad news for you - we've literally been standing there maybe

two or three minutes maximum.

We've just got out the car and he said to me, "Watch this road,

"it can be really, really bad."

'The driver says they're off on a break.

'Not the best start, then.'

Is this the first day of your holiday?

Yeah, we're just on the way to Heathrow.

Oh, OK. The guy's going on holiday, driving to the airport now.

He needs his driving licence for when he gets an America.

Rather than having to confiscate his licence, which he's entitled to do,

he said, "Keep it, and when you come back off your holiday in a couple weeks' time,

"you need to bring it in, and then the licence will be altered."

So he's used his discretion here.

Had he taken it off him, I'd imagine, when he gets to America,

picking the hire car up, they'd say, "Uh-uh."

Can you imagine how much your problem's going to be multiplied

then in America with no hire car?

Ooh.

So let's take a look at Rich's options.

The driver was doing 47 in a 30mph zone.

That's close to the level of a court summons.

Or, will it be a fixed penalty notice?

Or perhaps just a caution?

Over to you, Rich.

I'm going to do deal with you for the offence of excess speed.

That will be dealt with by a fixed penalty notice at the roadside,

-here and now.

-No surprise there.

That's the first £100 on-the-spot fine of the day.

I'll let you get back on your way to Terminal Five, or wherever it was.

And I would say enjoy your holiday,

but I might have put a bit of a damper on it for the day, that's all.

All right, take care.

Bye-bye.

I've got a funny feeling there may be a few more fines to come.

Careful, it's a 30mph limit here!

But there's a serious reason why we're here.

42.

A recent fatality on the road has had a major impact on the community,

as local resident Amy Louise has stopped to tell me.

The cars that come up and down this road are

going at approximately 40-50mph around the bend.

-Yes.

-And I've moved from one estate of Marlborough to this estate.

I now don't allow my children to play out.

It's completely changed our lives.

-Do you think speeding here is out of control?

-Absolutely.

Back to the road, and within seconds,

the speed gun picks off more offenders.

Nearly everybody's actually speeding.

I can see on the back of your gun, some not as bad as others.

That's from a standing start.

That's 43.

Could this be on-the-spot fine number two?

I tell you what, that's probably three minutes again.

-You haven't got time to boil an egg doing this job, have you?

-No, not at all.

-Evening, sir.

-Evening.

-Before I go any further,

I will tell you have committed the offence of excess speeding on London Road in Marlborough.

30mph speed limit up there.

From a standing start at the bottom of the hill, you managed to get to 43.

And I checked you again, gave you the benefit of the doubt, 168 metres away, you're doing 42 still.

So, you're just accelerating up the hill, it's not acceptable,

it's too fast for the road, all right?

Do you have your driving licence with you?

That's 13mph over the speed limit.

But the driver says he has an excuse.

He said there was an accident further down the road,

and he was stuck behind the hold-up in the traffic for quite a while,

so it was a release of the tension coming up the hill.

He realises he was speeding.

That was his excuse. But...as Rich said earlier,

he's heard every excuse in the world, and...

none of them really justify it. I can sort of see what he's saying,

especially if someone was killed here not that long ago,

due to speeding.

But has the excuse worked?

He's been caught doing 43mph -

that's still 13mph over the limit on this road.

I will be dealing with you today by way of a fixed penalty notice.

That is a speeding ticket. So it will be a further three points.

But it is dealt with by the way of a fixed penalty.

No excuses.

That's three points on his licence, and another £100 fine.

Now, if I said fly-tipping, what image would that conjure up for you?

Perhaps a bin bag dumped on a street corner?

Maybe a few more in the undergrowth?

Perhaps it's the contents of a house clearance in a back alley?

Or the contents of a skip on an industrial estate?

So what about a massive, 100m-long pile of soil?

It beggars belief, doesn't it?

In fact, it's fly-tipping on a virtually industrial scale.

And that's exactly what has happened here in Buckinghamshire.

Fly-tipping is just a case of people trying to make as much money as they

possibly can for as little expense as they can,

and ripping people off basically, and letting other people down.

But never fear, environmental waste officer Chris Smith is on the case.

This is the A355, it's a road that travels - in this particular case -

between Beaconsfield and goes north up to Amersham.

And we're going to visit a lay-by

that has been completely overrun by fly-tipping.

To such an extent that it looks like the lay-by's

going to have to be closed down.

There's so much waste in there now that it would just cost so much to

remove it they're thinking of leaving it there.

A trip out to site reveals just how bad this crime is.

This is one of the worst cases of fly-tipping

Chris' department has ever dealt with.

But the punishment is equally massive -

serious cases of fly-tipping can incur up to a £50,000 fine,

and a possible jail sentence of up to 12 months.

OK, so this is the lay-by on the A355 between Beaconsfield and Amersham.

If you look down the length of the lay-by from here,

you can kind of see the difference in the waste.

About halfway down, it changes from being very large piles of this

excavation waste,

to smaller piles of similar waste, but different size.

MUSIC: New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak

Chris has got technology on his side.

In his efforts to make someone pay for this crime,

he's taking a leaf out of the nature-cameraman book,

and hidden some cameras in the undergrowth.

But he's not on the lookout for badgers or foxes - oh, no.

Chris's secret visitors are more likely to do harm to the local wildlife.

Back at his office,

a review of the footage caught on Chris's surveillance cameras reveals

the shocking truth.

Over 24 hours, the camera has picked up five separate offenders.

One of whom has made multiple dumps.

Can anyone feel a fine coming on?

You can see how far he's gone back to unload that lot.

So if you note the time...

So they disappear at 12:32, the same vehicle comes back here at 13:17.

It comes back, and as you can see,

it can't get back so far now, cos of waste he's dumped previously.

So he's disappeared again at 13:20 on that day.

And if we flick through the footage...

..14:41, they reappear.

And the lay-by's getting fuller and fuller as they go along.

They're nearly running the camera over

as they come in that time.

We have identified the owner of the vehicle.

We've had a visit,

and I'm just doing a bit of background work before I write to him

and invite him in to give us an explanation about what he was up to.

We identified a total of five offending vehicles, if you like.

Using DVLA records,

Chris has been able to identify one of the truck owners that made

several trips to the lay-by.

Chris has asked him to come in for an interview under caution.

If he can make this evidence stick,

the owner of this vehicle could be in line

for a hefty fine of up to £50,000.

The second suspect of the five we've identified from the lay-by job

came in earlier this week.

We interviewed him.

Again, that was under caution at High Wycombe police station,

with a colleague of mine. And he initially denied any involvement.

Let me ask you -

are you responsible for the dumping of some topsoil in that lay-by

-on the 7th of April?

-No.

Do you know anything about

the deposit of waste in that lay-by?

No.

He claimed that he'd sold the vehicle that was

pictured in the lay-by.

He claimed he'd sold the vehicle in January,

he said it was a purpose-made tree surgeon's vehicle and he said he was

on a job one day in January, when he was approached by four guys who

wanted to buy the vehicle off him.

Got approached by some fellas and then sold it to them.

-There and then?

-Not there and then.

OK, so what happened?

Later on that day, when I was finished at work, I sold it to them.

So, they came back to your place or...?

-They came to the job.

-They came back to the job?

Yeah.

It's near my home, so I got the logbook dropped off.

-That day?

-Yeah. And then sold it to them.

I was quite desperate for the money, to be honest.

I didn't want to risk not being able to sell it and they were quite...

What do you call it? Persistent.

We continued with the interview,

it was funny because his body language was textbook, he was very fidgety,

his mouth was very dry.

We could almost sense, and I know it's easy for me to say with

hindsight, but you could sense that something wasn't right,

he was lying in some way or other.

And we continued to explore that story he'd given us,

making sure there were no loopholes left

and then I hit him with my ace in the pack, if you like.

Are you going to stick to that story?

-Yeah.

-If I said I had evidence to the contrary...

-I'd like to see it.

-OK.

I'm going to show you two photographs,

-they've been given the reference CAS4.

-Mm.

They are photographs of your truck outside your house.

I visited his home address early one morning, and took a photograph of

the vehicle outside his house.

When I produced that photograph, in fact, that's the photograph there,

when I produced that photograph to him, A, there was a big sigh,

almost of relief from him,

because he wasn't a good liar and

his head literally rolled forward and

banged on the desk when he realised that he was captured, sort of thing.

-Mm.

-What have you got to say about those?

-Yeah, I can see what you're saying now.

-Yeah?

-Mm.

I can still tell you now that it wasn't me that done the fly-tipping.

But no dispute it was your truck?

Yeah.

OK, so you've got some thinking to do, haven't you?

-Who was it?

-I can't say who it was.

-Really?

-Yeah, I honestly can't.

There's danger to my life.

-That's all I can say.

-Why do you say that?

Because I can't say who it was.

When we said to him,

"Right, what's this chap's name, what's his address?"

He just

insisted that he wasn't in a position to tell us

and he couldn't tell us.

He admitted that he knew his name,

he knew his address, but he just said he's the sort of person that

you don't mess with and he's going to have to take it on the chin.

They were his words.

I'm just going to have to take it on the chin, boys

and I'm going to have to accept that this...

Whatever you're going to do to me, sorry.

OK, let's have a look at the facts that Chris has assembled.

Multiple trips to the lay-by caught on video,

and proof that the guy still

owns the truck in question,

but the owner won't confess to being the driver responsible for the dump.

OK, Chris, will this stick?

When you've got such good evidence,

photographic evidence of people fly-tipping,

you've got a vehicle with the registration number, you can't...

You've got to do it justice, you can't stop pursuing them.

I will submit a file to our legal,

unless anything happens unexpectedly between now and then, he, I imagine,

will be summonsed to court.

There is a section within the legislation that we use, that...

um...

..imposes some liability on the owner of a vehicle

used in fly-tipping and

I think it's that section that we will be using...

Taking advantage of on this occasion.

This case has yet to go to court, but if found guilty,

this guy could be hit with a fine of up to £50,000

and a possible jail sentence.

In Cardiff...

..litter louts better beware.

The Cagney and Lacey of the garbage world are on a stakeout.

So, whether you're littering from a vehicle or you're stood there throwing stuff

on the floor, it's exactly the same.

There's no difference in it at all.

Waste enforcement officers

Steph Marnell Jones and Lauren Main-Robson are keeping a close eye

on a local drive-through and it doesn't take them long to spot their

first offender.

Just going to give that guy a fixed penalty.

Hi, how you doing, all right?

My name's Stephanie, a waste officer for Cardiff Council.

The reason why I've come over, just saw you littering, throw the lids,

-of your sauce.

-Even though the guy picks up the lid,

it's not enough to satisfy Steph.

This fast food junkie reckons as he's picked up the lid,

he shouldn't be punished.

You wouldn't have, though, if I didn't come over.

The bin is just over there. You were also throwing food as well.

It seems pretty clear-cut.

The man threw his ketchup lid onto the floor, so what's it going to be?

It's an £80 fixed penalty.

So, whilst the man finishes his lunch,

Steph serves him up a less than tasty £80 on-the-spot fine.

There you go.

-Thanks for your cooperation. Use the bins.

-No problem.

-All right? Thank you.

-No problem.

'He peeled the lid off the sauce and just chucked it.

'Then he threw a chip on the floor.

'And I thought, "I'm just not having that." '

So he gave me his details anyway, said he didn't know,

he said it was ridiculous, stupid, so I said,

well, I thought it was ridiculous and stupid that he was throwing litter on the floor.

Well, we took the registration number.

He didn't have any ID on him so, if he has given me any false information,

hopefully the car will bring something back if we need to go down that route.

I hope he will think about it next time he goes to throw something

out of the window, whether or not it will change his behaviour...

He didn't really seem that bothered by it.

He just thought I was wasting his time.

But you never know, hopefully.

Uh-oh, hold on.

Lauren has seen a litterer, too.

Isn't that the same place as the last guy?

There is a bin there. There is a bin over there.

Why didn't you chuck it in the bin?

"Oh, those bins."

You can't really miss them, can you?

As we sat in the vehicle, she witnessed him,

I think it was a salt packet first, it was quite small,

and then he threw another piece of litter out from his food packaging.

I'll have to just report you for the petty littering, OK?

For that assault on our streets, he faces an £80 fine.

There is a bin to the side, a bin in front, a bin behind,

two bins the other side.

There's just no excuse for that whatsoever.

After a morning binge of fast food,

you might choose to walk it off on the high street.

But litterers aren't safe there either.

Guy threw a cigarette on the floor.

The litter police have caught an elderly gent red-handed.

Hate doing old people. Excuse me.

My name is Lauren, here on behalf of Cardiff Council.

If you go and have a look, it's outside the door.

What I'm going to have to do is report you for petty littering, OK?

Unfortunately, litter is litter, whether you are old-aged or not, OK?

Just by dropping that one cigarette butt, he could be facing an £80 fine

for littering, or they might just let him off with a warning.

It is the 19th and it was at 11:14.

There is no leniency where litter is concerned.

We will issue you with a fixed penalty. You've got 14 days to pay.

If you want to appeal it, OK, don't pay it, to appeal a fixed penalty,

or if you don't pay it'll go to court and it's up to the judge to decide.

We just issue the fixed penalty for what we saw.

It's an £80 on-the-spot fine.

-Yeah, for littering.

-So he's accepted the fine and now he's about to get a free gift.

I'm going to give you this, actually.

In there is like where you can put your fags and in the back is for

chewing gum as well. So just keep that on you and it saves you having

to... It can be reused.

Thank you.

But it's not just the busy main roads where you can get caught for

littering. Around the corner on a quiet residential street,

Lauren has spotted another offender.

Hiya, excuse me, hiya. My name is Lauren.

Cardiff Council. You dropped your fag on the floor.

Your cigarette on the floor. No cigarette on the floor?

OK, I seen you drop your cigarette on the floor.

But it seems there's a language barrier.

She claims that she doesn't speak English.

I think you do understand.

I wonder if she understands the phrase, "£80 fine for littering",

because that's what could be on the cards.

If you don't cooperate, I will call the police to help me with it.

She's doing a runner.

-I'll follow you, then, that's fine.

-Well, it's more of a brisk walk.

MUSIC: William Tell Overture by Rossini

And now she's gone into hiding at home.

Obviously, I've seen this lady litter,

cigarette end onto the floor and walk away,

saying she doesn't speak English.

It's not true. If she doesn't give her details,

then I'll call the police myself, as it is an offence to withhold details

from an enforcement officer.

Either way, we'll get her details, yeah, whether she likes it or not.

If she doesn't pay, then we'll send her to court.

The litterer finally comes out of hiding.

What we need from you is your details. We'll give you the fixed penalty.

It's up to you whether or not you want to pay it, all right?

That's all we need, your details.

Eventually, the woman relents and produces her passport for ID.

Thank you. You've got 14 days to pay.

If you don't pay, it'll go to court.

It's up to you. That's the fixed penalty for littering.

Whether it's a cigarette, piece of paper, crisp packet, can of pop,

you can't throw stuff on the floor, all right?

-It's not allowed.

-Dropping a tiny cigarette butt has ended up costing

this lady a whacking £80.

But the problems with this resident don't stop with littering.

Your bags should go out after 4:30pm.

-Yeah?

-I know it's collection day tomorrow, but it is after four o'clock.

OK? It's too early. All right?

Thank you.

So she's not going to pay that.

I'd say, for every, for example, ten fixed penalties,

I'd say two maybe go to court.

And all for a discarded dog end.

I'm in Wiltshire.

Back on the beat with traffic cop Warren Knight.

RADIO CHATTER

'We've just had the call every traffic cop dreads.'

-What's happening, Warren?

-Road traffic collision, car v motorcycle,

so I'm just going to go and clear this traffic.

-RADIO:

-46, needing backup.

'A serious smash on Warren's patch is going to take priority.'

'As we arrive at the scene,

'you don't need to be an experienced traffic cop to know this is serious.'

Oh, it's not looking very good.

There's an awful lot of mess.

'Two badly damaged cars and a motorcyclist being attended to in a field.

'Could this be the result of speeding?'

All right, fella. What have you done?

It's a serious injury, so you might not want to look.

The car that the motorcyclist has hit is in a bad way.

The bike... Well, you can just see by the state of that bike

that this is obviously not going to be a very nice scene

to be a witness to.

The motorcyclist looks badly injured.

He is still lying in the field, where he's being looked after.

Warren now needs to take charge of the scene to make sure there is no

further incidents and to secure any evidence.

This is my scene, so I don't want anybody in it.

Yeah. It's an open lower-leg fracture.

So you might want to tell the ambulance that's the case.

Bike's been coming down the A4361 and it's been struck by the Nissan

and then the bike's hit the VW.

Received.

'Roger.'

But securing the crash site is not as easy as it might seem.

What the...? Sir!

Can you stay back from the junction, please?

There's been a crash. I don't need you to go down this road.

Can you turn around for me, please?

Just reverse into that junction for me, all right?

Just keep going and reverse.

Don't cross over this bit here, OK?

So keep going back.

Heading that direction...

Stop! Don't go any further. Just reverse back.

I was trying to help the officers a minute ago,

just looking for the number plate,

so they can identify who the motorcyclist was.

His bike's there and about ten metres away is his boot.

Which sort of makes me feel a bit queasy about the whole situation.

With the Wiltshire air ambulance arriving to treat the injured

motorcyclist, Sergeant Knight needs to gather any evidence that might

point to the cause of this terrible accident.

There's a phone in her car.

I think we'll have that, see if she'll allow you to look at the messages

-and see if there's a Bluetooth on it.

-Yeah.

If there's anything recent, we'll have the phone.

OK. But she'll have to let you...

-All right?

-What's your instinct at the moment?

Is speed involved?

It's hard to say. Looking at the crash site,

there's no indication that the motorcyclist has braked,

so there's no reaction to him.

It is an open road.

It's a 60 limit.

So we'll never be able to determine whether speed was a factor.

I suppose there is an element now, regardless of speed at the moment,

whether somebody might have been texting or talking on the phone.

That is always something that we'll look at.

So I'm in the process of seizing phones.

-Right.

-Establishing timelines.

-Yes.

-So when the calls come in to when the accident happened.

There is always going to be a slight discrepancy but I need to rule out

whether that was a distracter.

It's a modern car. It may well have Bluetooth.

But even with Bluetooth, if you have an incoming call with Bluetooth,

-it can distract you.

-Yes.

Because your mind is not on it.

But it will be determined to me to find out whether that's a call at

the junction or whether it's a call 400 or 500 metres back.

The motorcyclist has a broken leg

but is stable enough to be transferred

by helicopter to hospital in Bristol.

Warren doesn't know yet what caused this crash

but a sight like this brings home the importance

of the work done to prevent speeding.

Got to say, Warren, that was a bit traumatic for me but, for you,

it's something you see on a regular basis, isn't it?

As we were discussing, probably minutes before, about why we're doing

what we're doing, why it's important to look at the education

and look at how we enforce people -

had he been coming past me in the unmarked car,

not knowing he's been speeding, it's an opportunity for me to stop him,

deal with him for a fixed penalty notice,

slow him down and just discuss the dangers of being a motorcyclist.

And it may be that if that had happened 300 yards,

400 yards up the road, he'd have come down this junction,

seen the junction and thought, you know, "I'm going too fast,

"I need to ease off and probably make myself a bit more visible," and

probably would have avoided collision and would probably be

at home now eating his tea probably.

As it is, he's in a serious condition on his way to hospital.

Of course, we don't know if anyone involved in this terrible accident

was speeding. Some of these on-the-spot penalties can actually be life-savers.

Yeah, they can. It's about getting the message across to people that,

if you drive responsibly and carefully and make good decisions,

you will avoid collisions. You know, sometimes there is just bad luck.

You can't get away from that.

Sometimes, poor decision-making, coupled with speed or whatever,

distraction, drink or alcohol or drugs,

those things will impact how we drive.

-It's important people get that message.

-Yeah, definitely.

That's all for today. Join me next time, when I'll be out with the men

and women who issue Britain's on-the-spot fines.