Council Enforcement Officer's Abuse of Power: Woman Fined £150 For 'Littering' After Single Kale Leaf Left in Trolley

A volunteer who spends her free time collecting food for vulnerable families was confronted by a council enforcement officer, threatened with an even bigger penalty if she refused to hand over her details, and slapped with a £150 fixed penalty notice over a stray kale leaf wedged in her shopping trolley, according to the Daily Mail. The fine was only cancelled after the council reviewed the matter and admitted fault.

Monica Serro, 42, a welfare officer, had spent the day gathering food parcels from local supermarkets with her mother, parcels she goes on to distribute free of charge from her own home to people in need. It was while she was unloading that haul in a Sainsbury's car park in Arnold, Nottingham, last Thursday that an enforcement agent working for Gedling Borough Council moved in on her.

A large kale leaf had come loose during loading and lodged itself in the trolley's metal frame, unnoticed by Serro as she wheeled it back to the collection point. According to her account, the officer did not approach to point this out. He approached her to accuse her of an offence.

Confronted Over a Vegetable, Then Pressured Into Compliance

Serro told sources the officer walked up to her and declared, 'You know you just littered, you left a wrapping paper in the trolley,' already moving to issue a penalty before she had a chance to respond.

When she denied it and showed him what was actually in the trolley, his footing barely shifted: 'Yeah, that's food waste, next time use a bin,' he told her, by her account, already reaching for the machine.

What happened next is where the encounter tips from misjudgement into something closer to intimidation. Her mother tried to step in, explaining that her daughter was out volunteering, collecting food for the community, not discarding it.

The officer's response was to raise the stakes: if Serro would not hand over her personal details, he warned, the fine would only get larger. Outnumbered, watching her mother grow increasingly distressed, Serro said she stopped arguing. He took the leaf, issued the £150 notice, and handed the leaf back to her.

Serro, who has anxiety, told the outlet the confrontation left her on edge for the rest of the day and warned it could make her warier of enforcement officers in the future, precisely the kind of chilling effect a wrongly issued fine can have on someone doing unpaid work for their community.

The Paperwork Tells a Different Story Than the Officer Did

If the kale leaf were merely an honest mistake, the paperwork that followed undercuts that explanation. Serro disputed the fine immediately, and the notice itself did not hold up to scrutiny. The address listed was not the Sainsbury's car park where the confrontation happened. The stated reason for the fine was not a kale leaf at all. It was dropping a cigarette.

'I noticed on the fine he put a different address down, not the Sainsbury's car park, and the reason as I was fined was for throwing a cigarette to the floor,' she said.

'He wanted to fine me for the kale leaf, but then it implies that I was throwing a cigarette butt.'

Serro pushed the council for an explanation and demanded that the bodycam footage be reviewed. The response she says she received cited a 'technical issue' with the recording, alongside confirmation that she would not have to pay, an outcome that resolved her individual case without ever explaining how an officer's paperwork came to describe a different offence at a different location.

Gedling Borough Council cancelled the fine after several rounds of emails, and its complaints team apologised in writing, stating it had 'reviewed the body camera footage and evidence surrounding' the notice and apologised 'for the communication error with the title of the offence,' attributing it to 'a technical error.'

Serro is not satisfied that the label covers what happened to her. She reportedly believes the officer, young and possibly new to the job, dug in and pursued a penalty he had already half-decided to issue, rather than admit a mistake on the spot.

Not An Isolated Complaint Against Council Enforcement Staff

Serro's case lands amid wider unease over how private enforcement contractors, increasingly relied upon by councils to hand out fixed penalty notices, treat the public once challenged.

In a separate and unrelated case reported by GB News, two enforcement officers contracted to Harrow Council in north-west London were sacked after footage emerged showing one of them switching off a colleague's body-worn camera moments before both men threatened a member of the public with violence.

According to GB News, the officers, employed by Kingdom Services Group, warned the man filming them that he would face violence once they were off duty, with one declaring 'When I'm not in uniform, I'm gonna knock you the f*** out and rip your teeth out.'

Footage showed one officer pressing a button on his colleague's camera before the other confirmed it had been reportedly deactivated, raising the question of what enforcement officers say and do when they believe no record is being kept at all.

Both Harrow Council and Kingdom Services Group confirmed the officers no longer worked for the firm following the complaint. The Harrow Council said it takes 'any instance of officers deliberately turning off body-worn cameras extremely seriously,' adding that threats of violence towards the public 'will not be tolerated.'

Kingdom Services Group, which provides environmental enforcement and community safety services to local authorities nationwide, said swift action was taken once the complaint was raised in May.

A Power Imbalance That Only Tips Back With a Fight

Two different councils. Two different contractors. Two entirely different kinds of misconduct. But in both cases, it took the person on the receiving end refusing to simply accept what an enforcement officer told them, and pushing back hard, before anything was corrected.

Serro got her fine cancelled only after disputing it directly and demanding that the bodycam footage be checked. The man in Harrow saw officers sacked only after his footage spread widely online.