van driver smoking fine
© SWNSTrevor Emery would have been fined a quarter of the cash if he’d actually been smoking.
A van driver has been fined £200 for failing to display a no smoking sticker in his own vehicle - despite not being a smoker.

Trevor, 70, was travelling to a job in Canterbury, Kent, when he was slapped with the penalty by a city council warden.

Trevor Emery and his son Lee, who also does not smoke, were fined four times more than if they had actually been caught smoking in the van, because it is used for Trevor's appliance repair business.

The washing machine repairer was left bewildered by the law, which makes it compulsory to display a no smoking sticker in a work van.

Trevor, 70, was travelling to a job in Canterbury, Kent, when he was slapped with the penalty by a city council warden.

He said: 'We were completely oblivious to the law. I'm sure that if you walk the streets of Canterbury looking in the windows of work vans you won't see many of the stickers.

'Apparently it came into force in 2006 but we had not been made aware of it. Of course, if we had known then the sticker would have been in the van straight away.'

Trevor and Lee, who run their own domestic appliance business, Wash Freeze, are the only users of the van.

Trevor added: 'If we were actually caught smoking in the van, the fine would be just £50 - that is just ridiculous.
Van driver smoking fine
© SWNSMr Emery said he didn’t know about the law.
'Surely the best thing to do was to give us a fair warning and tell us to get a sticker - but that didn't happen.

'We were parked on double yellow lines, which we are allowed to do for unloading, so I thought the officer would bring us up on that. But then he said about this weird law.

'I was expecting a £30 fine or something like that, but a larger one seemed ominous when I asked the officer and he was reluctant to say - the figure he said was just ridiculous.'

The law states that businesses must display no smoking signs in all workplaces and vehicles. Fines can reach in excess of £1,000.

Trevor said: 'As I paid the fine within two weeks, it was reduced to £150, but that is still unfair.

'I appealed but we were unsuccessful, so we have now warned others about this law.

'Hopefully others won't be caught out - and we definitely won't as a no smoking sticker was put in the van straight away.'