Episode 12 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 are 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 is that our fault?

-What is he doing?

'..or just...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.'

Might 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.'

This time, I'm on the spot while this guy's on the phone.

So you do realise it is a driver's licence and not a Tesco Clubcard?

It is not designed to collect as many points as humanly possible.

They are paying the penalty for a wildlife buffet

on the streets of Cardiff.

-That's mush.

-Nope.

Mice...

BLEEP!

And things get hot and bothered when there are fines

on the parking patrol.

I'm not by your vehicle.

How you could just be so annoyed with just my presence...

CAR HORN HONKS

In Cardiff, waste enforcement officer Steph Marnell Jones

is on garbage patrol,

and she's on high alert because today is bin day.

Steph's joined by rookie waste enforcer Naomi Stediford.

Steph's teaching Naomi how to track down recycling avoiders

and issue them with on-the-spot fines of £80.

Unless, of course, she has already put the house on a warning,

in which case it's a £100 fine.

What I'll do is travel all these streets today

and any waste that's not supposed to be there, search and remove it.

The pair are looking for wrongly-bagged waste

that binmen can't take away.

Have a look.

Again, full of recycling.

But Steph isn't going through the smelly bin bags for fun.

She has to be 100% certain where the rubbish has come from

-before she can issue a fine.

-17.

So the recycling rookie needs to know the latest waste rules.

Recycling in green bags.

Food waste in secure brown caddies to keep out the rats and seagulls.

General waste in the new slim, black wheelie bins.

And when the rules are broken, the bins overflow,

and the local wildlife get an all-you-can-eat buffet.

If they put the food waste in the food waste bins,

the seagulls can't open bins...yet.

OK, Naomi, you got that?

Anyone breaking the rules can be hit with an £80 fine

or £100 if they've already had a warning.

So, now, Naomi, it's down to the dirty work,

and you're going to need a strong stomach.

These are really smelly. Hah.

-Oh, it's mush!

-The garden's quite bad.

Steph and Naomi have to clean up anything

that the binmen weren't able to take because it was in the wrong bags.

First time I've got to go through the bins today.

You know, cos I had my training before.

But already I can see how frustrating it is for everyone,

having to... I was out with another loader yesterday and already...

The minute we went round a corner there was a sofa there.

Made a note of it. Drove down about five minutes later,

went back, sofa was gone. So, it's like... They're going everywhere.

People are just picking up things.

I can still see you, Steph.

I'll probably have creepy-crawlies all over me now.

But it's in the leftover rubbish that they'll find their evidence,

something that will tie the waste to a particular address,

which is where another essential skill

of the trainee environmental crime officer comes in - detective work.

No, no evidence here.

It's all food waste.

Looks like Naomi's getting the hang of it.

That's under a different name.

But not enough for fine - yet.

OK, Naomi, you've had a taste - or should that be smell -

of life as a waste enforcement officer.

Now it's time to apply those skills to a particular case.

The area they're patrolling is full of students.

It's nearly the end of term,

when students usually pack up and move out,

and now Steph and Naomi are at a property

with a large pile of bags outside.

I think some of them are starting to move out.

And now...everything's going out now.

You'd think with all those qualifications

they'd be able to get the hang of recycling, but apparently not.

Here's all their saucepans.

Too lazy to wash up?

These residents thought it would be easier

to just chuck them in the bin,

but they should have been recycled or at least taken to the tip.

They've either had a clear out before they move in or they're gone,

or they can't be bothered to wash their dishes

and have just bought new ones.

But is there any evidence that could lead to a fine

hidden amongst this treasure trove?

All these are shoes.

Found some evidence there.

Let's take a look at what Steph has found -

unsorted, unrecycled waste, dumped outside the house,

and paperwork possibly linking the rubbish to the residents.

OK, Steph, what's it to be?

This is just deliberate fly-tipping, really.

Even though it's outside their property,

it's still, you know, dumping a lot of waste.

Looks like six or seven bags in total there.

You'll get a fixed penalty for that.

Hopefully they're still at the address.

Some of the items in there make me think that they may have moved out

or they're starting to clear out.

So I'll check with council tax,

if they've got any up-to-date information.

If the residents can be tracked down,

then it's an £80 fixed penalty fine -

the first of the day.

Really frustrating.

They just don't care whatsoever.

They dump it out and think somebody else can deal with it.

And it happens every year.

And it's time for Naomi to learn lesson number three - paperwork.

Her own this time - not the stuff that's been dumped on the street.

Basically, how many bags were outside the property,

whether we've removed the waste, which we do when we search it.

And if we find evidence we write it down

cos then Steph's got the pictures on her phone.

But if there isn't any evidence,

what I'll write is "no evidence" in there.

The issue is not just the mess, terrible though it is.

It's hitting Cardiff Council taxpayers

right where it hurts - in the pocket.

And unsurprisingly, Steph is less than impressed.

If my children went to university

and just had complete disregard for the neighbourhood that they lived in

and just threw their rubbish out and didn't really care

how it was going to be collected,

I'd be so embarrassed to be their parents.

But nobody teaches their kids how to put the bins out, do they?

It should be a new thing.

SHE LAUGHS

Steph and Naomi now have to head back to the depot

with a van full of unsorted waste.

But on the way, there's just time for one last training day lesson,

that a fineable offence can happen at any time.

Steph has spotted a driver smoking a cigarette out of his car window.

Is she about to issue on-the-spot fine number two?

I'm not sure. I think that's a BMW 1 Series.

There's no passengers.

He can smoke, he hasn't done anything wrong yet.

There it goes, flicked it,

he flicked that across and it landed on the pavement.

We're on Newport Road, outside TGI Friday's at 11.50am.

So, what are we looking at?

Cigarette thrown,

and the car drives away.

OK, Steph, what's it to be?

So basically when I get back to the office now, I'll do a DVLA check

and get the owner's details.

If Steph is able to trace the driver,

it'll mean her second fine of the day.

This time, a fixed penalty of £80 for littering.

But she still has all that rubbish to dispose of.

I've got a van load, I've got a 3.5 tonne van,

so just a little bit depressing

that it never gets better, even though they get fixed penalties,

they don't really care.

I mean, you know, an £80 fixed penalty to a household

is quite a lot of money, cos it's usually the ratepayer paying it.

But when it's, you know, ten students,

they've just had a load of waste taken away for £8 each.

You know? I think the fines should be bigger.

Well, hopefully, those litter louts will be brought to justice.

It's a glorious day in Havering

on the outskirts of London.

Great for ice cream sellers,

bad for traffic wardens.

Whatever little bit of chance we do have of people

being sort of cool with us, that kind of goes out the window.

You tend to find in hot temperatures

people are tending to lose their cool a lot quicker.

They kind of just snap at the smallest things.

Kam Paul is the parking officer.

Today she's tackling hot-under-the-collar car owners.

On a hot day like this, the poor things are dehydrating,

just like us, so it kind of takes their tolerance

and patience down to a minus.

It may be one of the hottest days of the year so far

but Kam isn't cutting anyone any slack.

Park in the wrong spot or overstay your ticket,

then you could be hit with a £130 on-the-spot fine.

MUFFLED SHOUTING

In future, you need to look,

cos you're going to get yourself a ticket like that, sir.

On a day like today,

drivers facing down a fine can easily reach boiling point.

We've got a car on the footway over there.

I'm going to politely ask the gentleman to move

and hopefully he won't be too fuming.

Kam has spotted a car that's taking up a big chunk of the pavement.

There's no getting away from that single yellow line.

Could this be Kam's first fine of the day?

Can't park like that.

She's let him off, and everyone's kept their cool.

That's a thumbs up. No abuse, no conflict, he just moved on.

Those are the kind of drivers I don't mind.

It's when we turn up and ask them politely to move on

and they still don't want to move, that can be a bit annoying.

Because then you're left with the option of giving them a ticket,

and obviously, they're not going to be too happy about that.

It's like people have just got nothing better to do.

The temperature's hotting up and so are tempers.

That's pretty normal as well, language like that.

You see weird things here sometimes.

What I don't understand is, if I'm not by your vehicle,

how you can just be so annoyed with just my presence?

Just looking at me?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't get excited!

I'm not excited, sir.

-Have you done it?

-Nope.

-Can I put some money in?

-Yeah, go ahead.

Kam's spotted a driver sleeping at the wheel, parked up,

but, oh, dear, the ticket on the windscreen has expired.

So, Kam's options -

a rude awakening or a £130 on-the-spot fine.

-You're expired, boss.

-Was it? I'm going anyway.

-All right, brilliant.

-It's another no fine.

That's quite common as well, people will purchase a ticket,

fall asleep in the car.

-Ticket?

-It's in there.

-Where is it?

Now, it's the curious case of the invisible ticket.

I've just started the ticket, that's all.

Kam can't see it anywhere.

I paid £1.20.

It's fallen down.

With no ticket displayed, it could mean a penalty of £130.

-That's fine, no problem.

-Sorry, it must have fallen down.

-No worries.

We've all done it, when a gust whips the ticket from the windscreen.

This time, no fine.

Luckily, the driver came back in time.

It's came up and it's fallen down, the wind probably,

and that's how it's fallen.

So, yeah, I was well pleased.

I could have got a ticket.

Next, we're in the district of Pendle in Lancashire...

SHEEP BLEAT

..where the council team who protect the environment

are on patrol every day.

So, where are we off to?

First job of the day is a skip that's apparently been emptied

by the skip company after a dispute over payment.

Um, apparently they've turned up after they've not been paid

and just tipped the skip onto the back street.

That's the story we're getting.

It's Environmental Crime Officers Matty Hargreaves

and Jeff Brown's job to clamp down on antisocial crimes

by issuing on-the-spot fines.

And, if the offence is serious enough,

they can issue a court summons.

They've taken the skip away and left the waste,

but we need to really speak to people,

see if anybody's actually seen it.

-That's pretty awful.

-That's not good, is it?

Especially for what you'd hope would be a responsible company

when it comes to waste, a skip company,

they should know what's right and what's wrong.

We'll just go, we'll see what we can find.

Do a few door knocks, see if anybody has seen anything,

find out whose waste it is that's been dumped.

-Do we know the skip company?

-Not yet, no.

That's something we need to find out.

The tip-off came from a local resident in the town of Colne.

It appears the contents of a skip had been dumped

in a back lane behind a house.

It's not only restricting access to people's houses,

this could be a potential fire hazard.

HORROR FILM STYLE MUSIC PLAYS

I tell you what, that's disgusting, isn't it?

If the culprit is caught,

they could get an on-the-spot penalty of up to £400,

but, if it's serious enough and the case goes to court,

they could be looking at a fine of up to £50,000,

or even five years in prison.

Somebody's going to know whose waste it is, who's hired the skip,

so that's what we're here to really find out.

So, what's the crime?

A massive pile of waste blocking the entire alley.

Just need to do some door knocking.

Nobody wants to talk to us today.

Hang on. Someone's actually in.

DOG BARKS

Hiya. I'm from the council. I believe you used to live at...

It's just, we're here regarding the waste in the back street.

The tenant claims it's her landlord who's responsible for the skip.

Do you know who your landlord was?

The skip has been on the backstreet more or less since she moved in,

and she says it's the landlord that's dealing with the skip.

She's given her landlord's name.

But it's a step in the right direction.

Just need to probably knock on a few more houses,

see if anybody's seen anything.

Hiya. I'm from the council.

It's just regarding all the waste on the back street.

I'm just going to find out... No, no, no.

As far as I'm aware, it's...

-Hold on, she'll tell you in a minute.

-There was a skip there...

They finally find someone who has a memory for details.

Did you see it happen?

No, I saw the van come.

It were... What day are we on today? Wednesday?

It could have been Friday last week.

Possibly Friday last week.

Possibly Friday last week, it could have been.

The skip were full and then, obviously,

they came and picked the skip up.

I don't know whether they left the waste or not.

-I'm not too sure.

-Right. There's a big pile of waste.

-I ain't seen it.

-Right, OK.

It seems that when the skip company wasn't paid,

they returned and dumped the contents of the skip

behind the house that had rented it.

So let's take a look at Matty and Jeff's case -

a pile of waste blocking an alleyway,

contacts for the landlord for the property it came from

and a lead for the skip hire company.

Could this all lead to a fine,

or worse?

So we've got a landlord that we can contact, hopefully,

regarding one of the addresses

and also a skip company who has supposedly, er...

..dealt with the waste.

But we've definitely got something to go on for now.

If Matty and Jeff's leads pay off,

somebody could be looking at a court summons,

which could mean up to a £50,000 fine or up to five years' jail time.

Now that's a big price to pay for dumping a load of old rubbish.

In Crawley in Sussex,

partners Sam Lucas and Naveed Ur-Rehman

are council community wardens.

They're working to stamp out antisocial behaviour around the town

and, when they find it,

they'll need to ensure the culprits are dealt with.

We've got a call that, um...

there's a group of people, either they're drinking or smoking drugs.

It's in Goffs Park in Crawley,

so we're actually heading towards that place.

To reduce incidents of antisocial behaviour

in Crawley's public spaces,

Naveed and Sam can stop and move on anyone found drinking in public.

If they refuse to hand over the alcohol to us,

then we call the police for assistance.

Let's see if we can go and catch them.

Public drinking in this area is prohibited...

..but there might be more than booze at play here.

We'll go and see what they're doing.

They're moving now.

But Naveed and Sam are in pursuit.

Hello, guys. Are you all right?

We are the wardens, Crawley Council.

Can I ask what you're doing here, sir?

This area, basically, a lot of drinkers, people who come and drink.

This is an area well-known to the Crawley wardens.

OK, people do come and do the business of drugs.

-And drugs dealing.

-And drugs dealing as well.

No alcohol here, but evidence of something more worrying

just around the corner.

Naveed's just found an empty morphine bottle and also some foil,

which is quite common with using drugs.

Of course, we don't know if this group was involved in drugs

but, with the group moved on, Naveed and Sam's patrol continues.

Another hour, another park.

Sam and Naveed know some culprits take cover in the bushes.

So that's the place. Normally, they come round, sit round over here

but, because we are checking this area more frequently now,

so we're having less problems now.

So people are not coming here, so it means we're achieving our aim.

This group on the grass have attracted the team's attention.

It's the morning and they're enjoying a tipple and a smoke.

-Hello.

-Hello, Mike.

Hello, sir. We're the wardens.

Crawley Council, yeah?

You're just having a drink, yeah?

Obviously, they're drinking and Crawley's a non-alcoholic zone.

-Is that your cigarette?

-Sorry?

Excuse me, is that your cigarette?

-OK.

-Sorry.

-You can't...

-You can't leave it on the floor, sir.

If they refuse to pick it up,

there could be an £80 fine for littering on the cards.

Yeah, you can smoke.

You can smoke, but once you finish, make sure it goes into the bin, OK?

But the littering doesn't end there.

There's a bottle in the bushes.

Is that your bottle, yeah?

Is this your bottle?

And a defensive reaction.

This is not mine, not mine.

But you are drinking Coke.

No, no, no. It isn't mine.

So let's look at what the team found.

Drinking alcohol in a restricted zone

could result in action by the police.

If they're acting antisocial,

then we do take their drink from them, we can do.

Sam's decided to give them a warning, this time.

We've obviously advised them they shouldn't really be drinking,

but, in this case, they're just having a general drink,

so we've just told them they should really leave if they want to drink.

They shouldn't really be drinking here.

I'm in Wiltshire, on the spot with PC Jay Clifton.

In 12 years as a traffic cop,

he's handed out thousands of on-the-spot fines.

Do you ever think, "This person probably can't afford this fine"?

Or, "Perhaps I should cut them a bit of slack" or whatever?

Or is it very black and white to you?

We understand that not everyone's got a lot of money

and times can be hard, but, at the same time,

if you're going to do something

which is blatantly breaking a traffic law,

then you know that you're going to have to pay the consequences

and that is going to be,

normally, a fixed penalty notice or going to court with a hefty fine.

So, the rules are the rules,

and it's not long before Jay spots a driver breaking one right behind us.

The guy behind us is definitely on the phone.

-I'm just going to pull over.

-Oh.

You can tell from there?

Yeah, in the van, he's coming past us now. See it?

'We're in an unmarked car,

'so this white van man is unaware his lawbreaking

'has been clocked by the cops.'

So we're going to go past him now.

-Hello.

-Bang to rights.

-Yeah, there we go.

So we've got a driver on the mobile phone.

What we're going to do is I'm going to get him to follow me

into the service station up ahead.

He looked you right in the face and dropped it immediately, didn't he?

Yeah, he knows exactly what he was doing was wrong.

'But he might not realise he could be facing a hefty fine.'

He knows he's in for a ticking off.

Or could it be worse than a ticking off?

There's a £100 on-the-spot fine for using your mobile while driving,

so could this guy be on the sharp end of a ticket?

Do you find that annoying, that people are doing that?

They're on a motorway, middle lane, in a van,

one hand on the phone, chatting away, does it rile you?

There's no excuse for it. There is no excuse for it.

As we've just said, technology today, there are hands-free kits,

Bluetooth kits, there's a multitude of ways

to be able to deal with this,

without having to have your hands off the steering wheel.

And this gentleman's about to find out the hard way.

Listening to Jay, does anyone else feel

there could be a fine on the way?

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Do you have your licence with you?

-No.

-No? OK. Is the vehicle yours?

It's not mine, it's my dad's. But I'm...

OK. I know it's obvious.

The reason I've stopped you is, as I've gone past,

I've seen you using a hand-held mobile phone.

I've got to point out it is an offence to drive a motor vehicle

whilst using a hand-held mobile phone.

Is there any lawful reason you can give me

-as to why you were doing that?

-Um, no.

No? OK. Thank you for your honesty.

So let's look at the facts -

spotted on his mobile phone, while driving on the motorway.

You know what? You've even got it on camera.

Hello!

What we're going to do, we're going to take a seat in my car,

got a bit of paperwork to fill out.

The way I propose to deal with this is by way of a fixed penalty notice.

It's a £100 fine with three points on your licence.

So there it is -

three points on his licence and a £100 fine.

How do you feel about the outcome of what's just happened to you?

Um...

I feel very stupid, to be honest with you.

I've even got Bluetooth in my van.

-Why didn't you use it?

-I didn't have it switched on in my phone.

-Yeah.

-It's habit, isn't it?

Your phone goes, you...

..you pick it up. It's wrong, it is wrong, but it does happen.

Do you have any sort of animosity or anger...?

-LAUGHING:

-No, cos you shouldn't be on your phone!

-Yeah.

You shouldn't be on your phone, so, no, not at all.

OK. So basically you've got your hands up in the air.

Yeah, a stupid, stupid mistake

and so I'm definitely going to learn from it.

What I'm finding, the more and more time I'm spending,

not just with you, but out on the road with various police forces,

most people are so...

They're sort of almost relieved that you've been so nice

and that they know they've done wrong,

and that no-one seems to have a problem with it.

You know, it's a case of, "Yeah, it's a fair cop."

I rather expected people to be a little bit more annoyed,

either with themselves or certainly with you guys,

but people know they're doing wrong and they just take it, don't they?

They do, and it's all about how we speak to them.

I expect to be spoken to the way I speak to people.

If I jump out and start shouting and screaming,

they're going to shout and scream at me,

but if I'm polite and courteous, they'll be exactly the same back.

I don't know if you saw, as we approached Shane

before we got him out of the vehicle,

he had his head in his hands on his steering wheel.

-Yeah.

-So, his emotional reaction happened within the car,

prior to him being in the car with us,

so there was a reaction there.

Expensive mistake for him, wasn't it?

£100, three points.

An expensive mistake indeed.

But if he stops using his phone when driving,

then maybe it's been worth it.

Thanks for watching. Join me next time for more Dom On The Spot.