A taxi driver has become the first in the area to be taken to court for smoking in her cab.
Grandmother Susan Longman was having a smoke while waiting at a rank when she was spotted by a licensing officer from Havant Borough Council.
The 56-year-old was then sent a fixed-penalty notice of £30 to her home in Woolmer Street, Emsworth.
But she ignored the fine and subsequent letters demanding payment until eventually the council had no choice but to serve her with a court summons.
Mrs Longman did not show up at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court and was fined £352.57 in her absence.
Mrs Longman admitted ignoring all correspondence sent to her but has now agreed to pay the cash.
But she has hit out at the fine.
She said: 'I most probably was smoking, I don't really remember. But I would only do it on my own, not when there was anyone else in the car. To my mind I should be allowed to smoke in the car, it was mine, I bought it.
'I have never smoked with passengers though.
'What right has the council got to tell me what to do?
'It wasn't harming anyone else.'
The law against smoking in cabs was part of the wider smoking ban introduced in July 2007. Smoking is banned on all public transport as well as lorries and vans.
Mrs Longman received no sympathy from the taxi trade body, the National Taxi Association.
Wayne Casey, from the NTA, said: 'The law on this is crystal clear. A taxi is classed as a workplace, a public place and she should not have been doing it. The law is the law and she can't say she didn't know about it.'
Mrs Longman has since given up her taxi job because she says she wasn't making enough money.
She says she pleaded guilty by post and will pay the fine back at £25 per week.
Stephen Dear, environmental health manager at Havant Borough Council, said: 'We issue a fixed-penalty notice only when there is a flagrant disregard of the rules.
'Because it was not paid, we had to take it to the next stage.
'It has always been one of our licensing conditions that drivers don't smoke whilst they have passengers but then the national smoking legislation came in in 2007 and made it an absolute offence to smoke in a taxi at any time.
'The public have the right to have a clean atmosphere in their taxi.'
Other local authorities have issued fixed-penalty notices and warnings given but none has led to court action.
There have been several high-profile court cases nationally of taxi drivers taken to court.
source:
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/
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