Homeowners are being slapped with petty fines of up to £1,000 by jobsworth council officials for leaving even a single item of rubbish outside their properties and campaigning against local cuts to services.
Bungling staff have threatened a single mother who left furniture outside her property to go to a good home with prison and fined a man for putting his bins out a day early when he was going on holiday.
Officials have even slapped a five-year-old girl with a £1,000 fine and threatened to take her to court after falsely claiming a warden saw her fly-tipping - before being forced to admit no worker had seen anything of the kind.
It comes after a woman was issued an on-the-spot fine for passing out leaflets to fellow residents in Leicester campaigning against council cuts because she set up a camping table.
As UK councils are being accused of lacking common sense, residents up and down the country are being warned to have extra caution before doing anything outside of their own home and driveway.
