Children as young as TEN could face £500 ‘Asbo’ fines
ChILDRen aged ten will be slapped with £500 fines for breaching ‘ busybody orders’ that can be used to ban playing football.
Under a new law, the minimum age for getting a Community Protection notice (CPn) is being lowered from 16 to cover primary school pupils.
The on-the-spot punishment for breaking one of the orders – the successor to the Asbo – is being raised from £100 to £500.
The move brings CPns in line with the age of criminal responsibility but has sparked concern as councils and police are accused of giving out too many such notices for minor nuisances following complaints by ‘busybodies’, unlike the standards for a prosecution.
People have been threatened with the orders for failing to clean windows, overfilling their bins, feeding a neighbour’s cat or wearing a bikini in the garden.
Josie Appleton, of civil liberties group Manifesto Club, said: ‘CPns can be written on the spot and include substantial restrictions on liberties such as barring a person from their town centre.
‘It is terrifying that children still in primary school would have to defend themselves against council lawyers if they want to challenge CPn restrictions such as bans on seeing friends or entering an area.’
The measures have been buried in the Criminal Justice Bill.
Tory backbenchers are expected to lobby home Secretary James Cleverly and seek amendments when the legislation is debated in the Commons this month.
The Bill will also let police search properties without a warrant and comb millions of driving licence photos to spot suspects.
Tory former Cabinet minister David Davis said: ‘We need to revisit the whole Bill but the solution will not be giving the authorities more busybody powers.’ CPns were introduced by then home secretary Theresa May in 2014 as a way for police and councils to curb antisocial behaviour without having to take noisy neighbours, yobs and fly-tippers to court.
They require council staff, police or social landlords to issue a written warning setting out the ‘detrimental effect on the quality of life’ the nuisances are causing.
Unless they change their ways, those accused are told they will be issued with a CPn and if they breach that, then they can be fined and taken to court.
But there are few restrictions on how the orders can be used and of the almost 50,000 issued over the past decade, many are said to have targeted lawful behaviour rather than serious problems. One town hall recently issued a CPn ordering a school, ‘ not to allow students to use heavy leather footballs and only use light flyaway or foam footballs’.
And the Daily Mail told how a 97-year- old near Blackpool was threatened with a CPn for feeding birds in her garden, after neighbours complained that it was creating a nuisance.
A home Office spokesman said: ‘We are bringing the Community Protection notice in line with the age of criminal responsibility in england and Wales, which is ten years old. Persistent cases of antisocial behaviour cause misery for individuals and the wider community, which is why our Action Plan takes a zero tolerance approach to tackling it.’
‘We need to revisit the whole Bill’