A STUDENT has been left furious after she was fined £150 when a pigeon ate a crumb she’d dropped from a Greggs tuna baguette.
Leonie Ormsby, 22, accidentally dropped a crumb from her boyfriend’s sandwich while sitting at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester on Monday.
“I dropped one bit of food, I didn’t think it was bad. It was the size of a pound coin. I have never littered in my life. We were sitting having a nice time. There was no warning,” she told the Manchester Evening News.
She said pigeons then flocked around the crumb and it was gone “within one peck”.
Ms Ormsby said she was then approached by two officers who said they had seen her feeding the pigeons.
“He said ‘you are on camera’. I said ‘I don’t want to give details’. He said ‘if you don’t give your details it will go to court’,” Ms Ormsby said.
She said she plans to appeal the fine and does not want to pay it.
“It’s just deflating, £150 is a lot of money. It’s not a joke when you get fined this much money. I can’t really afford that. If they warned me, I wouldn’t have done it again. I nearly started crying,” she said.
Ms Ormsby’s fine comes days after another young woman was fined for feeding Greggs vegan sausage roll crumbs to pigeons.
Kerris Fenn, 22, said she had ripped the end of the pastry into ‘tiny pieces’ to feed a small group of birds in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre as they looked ‘quite sweet’ last Sunday.
But she was shocked when she was given a £150 fine, reduced to £120 if she paid it within ten days.
Ms Fenn, who lives in Cardiff, was visiting her brother in Manchester
when she sat down to enjoy her savoury pastry snack on July 26.
“I was eating a Greggs Sausage Roll. It was less than a mouthful left.
(The pigeons) had gathered around. I thought it was quite sweet,” she said.
“I just really like animals, I’m a vegan. I ripped it into tiny pieces. I tried feeding the crumbs to them. It was just a small group, not flocks and flocks,” she said.
She said there were ‘no crumbs left’ after the pigeons gobbled up the remains. But 3GS, on behalf of Manchester City Council, came over and ‘demanded her ID’.
“They charged me £120 (for littering). It would have been more than
£150 if I left it more than 10 days. It’s outrageous. It’s is crazy to
treat me the same as someone who throws litter on the floor,” she said.
A Manchester City Council spokesperson said feeding pigeons in Piccadilly Gardens was “littering, plain and simple”.
“While we take no pleasure in handing out Fixed Penalty Notices to
offenders, it’s extremely important that people understand that they
should not be feeding the birds in this way,” councillor Rabnawaz Akbar said.
“Illegally dropping food for the pigeons is bad for the local
environment and can also be harmful to the birds, as many items
intended for human consumption are not suitable for them to eat.”
