A WOMAN must pay more than £2,000 because she failed to keep her garden free of dog faeces during a nine-month period.

York Magistrates Court heard Lesley Smith’s actions had caused such a problem for the neighbourhood that she had been issued with a community protection order.

The order was aimed at stopping stink and flies from her garden causing a problem to her community.

But she didn’t abide by the order.

City of York Council told the court that she had “failed to collect dog faeces in her garden without delay and properly dispose of it in a suitable receptacle so as to minimise odour and flies”.

The council also told the court the problem had existed between August 5 last year and May 7.

Smith, 66, of Hinton Avenue, Foxwood, did not respond to the summons to attend court. She was convicted in her absence of breaching the community protection order.

She was fined £1,000 and ordered to pay the council’s £1,017.42 prosecution costs and a £100 statutory surcharge.

Police and local authorities may issue a person with a community protection notice if they believe that his or her behaviour is having a detrimental and persistent or continual effect on people in the neighbourhood and that the person is behaving in an unreasonable way.