JACK Double has been left with a chip on his shoulder today after being hit with a £50 fine for littering.The 14-year-old told of his disbelief at the punishment, which he said came after he threw a bad-tasting chip to a seagull.

JACK Double has been left with a chip on his shoulder today after being hit with a £50 fine for littering.

The 14-year-old told of his disbelief at the punishment, which he said came after he threw a bad-tasting chip to a seagull.

He said: “I'd got a bag of chips and bit in to one and it was really hard.

“When I looked at the other half it was really green so I just threw it to a seagull nearby.

“All of a sudden these two litter enforcement officers came up to me and handed me a notice saying I had to pay a £50 fine.”

Just three weeks earlier Jack had been awarded a certificate by enforcement officers in the same area commending him for putting his rubbish in the bin.

His mum Mandy Double of Mallard Way, Ipswich said: “I've phoned up the enforcement officers and written to them to appeal against the fine.

“If he'd come home and said 'Mum, I've got a fine for throwing a crisp packet on the floor', then I would have had no sympathy and he would be paying it out of his own pocket money but throwing half a chip to a seagull? It's ridiculous!

“Are they going to go to Christchurch Park and fine everybody who feeds the ducks?”

Jack, a Chantry High School pupil, said he had refused to give the officers his name after discarding the chip while on his way back to school from his lunch break.

However, Jack had his chips when the officers followed him back to school where they were given the information.

He said: “I just couldn't believe it. It seems like so much fuss over half a chip!”

Miss Double said: “I live right near the school and I have litter in my garden every day from the kids that walk past, so Jack knows how much it annoys me.

“I have always brought him up to go back and pick up anything that he throws on the floor, and his pockets are always full of rubbish so I know he doesn't just drop things everywhere.”

A spokesman for Ipswich Borough Council said: “We did issue a fixed penalty notice to a boy for throwing food on to the ground but we cannot comment further on this case.

“We would like to add that, prior to this incident, we had been to Chantry High School to advise pupils of littering problems.

“We are determined to keep Ipswich clear of litter and food mess which can attract vermin.”

Do you think this was a fair punishment? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

www.ipswich.gov.uk

Andy Tierney, 24, of Hinckley, Leicestershire, was fined £50 for throwing two pieces of junk mail in a street litter bin in March. Council officers tracked him down using the addresses on the envelopes and said he was being fined because "domestic refuse was dumped into a street litter bin".

Alan Joyce, 68, from Poole, Dorset, was fined £75 for flicking cigarette ash out of his car window.

He was told a council officer had reason to believe he was "dripping his cigarette" while driving his car.

Hilary Buckland from Luton, was fined £75 for throwing a Wotsit out of her car window in May this year.

Also in May, Bernard Hambleton, 66, from Stockport was given an Asbo for feeding pigeons outside his home, after neighbours complained about pigeon noise and bird droppings.

An Essex man found himself in trouble when he drove too far while throwing chips out of his car window, he littered the streets of two different councils and found himself fined twice.

In December 2004 bargain shopping proved a false economy for a woman who was fined £100 when she dropped a receipt as she left Poundland in Dudley.

A Gateshead woman was fined £50 in February 2005 after a parking ticket fell off her car windscreen onto the ground when she drove away, leaving her to pay both the parking fine and the litter penalty.