- A £30 GP letter proving he has prostate cancer saw the £88 littering fine binned
- Prostate cancer kills more than 11,800 men a year in the UK and 26,000 in US
A motorist fined £88 for ‘littering’ when he was caught urinating in a layby has had his penalty overturned — by proving he has a weak bladder.
Michael Mason, 69, claimed his weakened prostate meant he ‘couldn’t help’ having to pullover halfway through his two-hour journey to wee, adding: ‘If I had gone any further, I would’ve soiled myself.’
He paid his GP £30 to write a letter confirming his medical condition was to blame for his inability to hold it in.
Council bosses threw out the fixed penalty notice after ‘learning of all the facts’.
Mr Mason, from Buckinghamshire, stopped at the last layby on the A41 near Kings Langley in Hertfordshire, right before it joins the M25.
He told the BBC: ‘I made sure nobody could see me and was very, very discreet.’
Michael Mason, 69, from Winslow, Buckinghamshire, was issued with an £88 fixed penalty notice but was refunded after proving he has prostate cancer
Mr Mason was caught while parked in the layby on the A41, near Kings Langley, Hertfordshire (pictured)
But a district enforcement officer, working on behalf of Dacorum Borough Council, was present at the time.
They tapped on Mr Mason’s window and told him he had been caught ‘littering’.
According to the BBC, Mr Mason claimed to have apologised and explained it only happened because it was an ’emergency’.
Mr Mason said he ‘politely explained to the enforcement officer that it’s not something I normally do’.
He added ‘I was about to join the M25 motorway — it just came on and that was it, I couldn’t do anything about it.’
He was warned that if he did not pay the FPN within 14 days it would rise to £2,500.
Dacorum Borough Council agreed to extend the payment deadline until December 12th and invited him to provide medical evidence as to his condition.
It originally said he ‘did not mention any medical conditions in his representation’.
It later added: ‘Since learning of all the facts, we are pleased that in this case the FPN has rightly been cancelled.’
For people with prostate conditions ‘wild wees are not that uncommon’, according to Dr Nighat Arif, an NHS GP from Buckinghamshire.
She said: ‘For men who have prostate issues, needing to rush to the toilet, urgency and needing to pee frequently are sometimes the early, easily missed symptoms.
‘The signals received from the bladder, due to the pressure of an enlarged prostate, in the brain makes it difficult for a person to resist the urgency to pass urine.’
Prostate problems are common in men over 50.
Enlargement of the walnut-sized gland, cancer and inflammation can all cause the frequent need to urinate.
The council said the fine was for ‘littering’ and said ‘urination is classified as litter by the Environmental Protection Act 1990.’
But specialist motoring lawyer Nick Freeman, nicknamed Mr Loophole’, studied the legislation and said the council were wrong to define urine as litter.
He told BBC Three Counties Radio: ‘The very fact it doesn’t mention urine clearly indicates that urine is not actually a piece of litter or in any way littering.’
But the council insisted it was part of the legislation.
‘The definition or classification of urination as litter or urinating in public as a criminal offence under the 1986 Public Order Act is not for us, as an individual borough council, to comment on or define’, the council said.
Although pleased the fine has been cancelled, Mr Mason said he was ‘still wondering about all the other people who have been fined in the same area’.
‘I don’t believe it’s the spirit of the law, in this case, to fine people for littering.’
In future, he has said he will ‘carry a receptacle’ in his vehicle in case he needs to urinate while driving.