He went off on a bizarre rant at David Taylor, who claimed his girls aged five and ten were 'criminalised' for picking blooms for their mum and gran
PIERS Morgan branded a father a "cheapskate" after he filmed a cop confiscating 27 daffodils his daughters had picked for Mother's Day.
The Good Morning Britain host went off on a bizarre rant at David Taylor, who claimed his girls aged five and ten were "criminalised" for picking blooms for their mum and gran.
We told yesterday how David rowed with the policewoman who said the children were breaking the law by taking flowers from the council-owned verge in Mansfield, Notts.
He told GMB in a pre-recorded interview today: "I don't think they should have been criminalised as they were. It was a bit over the top.
"With crime rate in the area quite high, you've got to think, don't they have better things to do with their time?"
But furious Morgan said he "feels sorry" for the kids over their dad's behaviour.
He said: "They just had a cheapskate of a father who couldn’t be bothered to put his hand in his pocket.
"Go and buy them from the garage like everybody else."
Morgan — who bragged he spent £100 on flowers for his mum — went on: "This father was just too tight-fisted on Mother's Day to go and buy a quid's worth of daffodils.
"Mr Taylor, if you're watching, don't be so tight-fisted. Don't grab our daffodils, go and buy your own daffodils."
Co-host Susanna Reid looked stunned as Morgan got more worked up, yelling: "Buy some daffodils seeds. How much are daffodil bulbs? Literally like tuppence, right?
"Mr Taylor, come down to my garden and I'll sell you my daffodils, you cheapskate."
The presenter later admitted on Twitter: "I never knew I could get so angry about daffodils."
Yesterday David said the policewoman had "ruined Mother's Day" after she caught the family heading back to their car with the daffs.
He told the he had told his daughters not to pick “too many” when they stopped on the way to visit his mum.
He said: "I said I understood where she was coming from, but there are hundreds by the side of the road down there.
"I have always taught my girls to respect the laws and for the sake of picking flowers I now have to explain to my kids that what they did was wrong.
“She gave me a telling off, which I understand, but the flowers had already been picked so I don't see why she had to take them from the girls.
"It has ruined Mother's Day.”
Nottinghamshire Police said the cop gave the family "advice" and took the confiscated bunch of 27 daffs to a local care home so they would not go to waste.
Flowers which grow in "public land" such as council parks are illegal to pick. It is also illegal to pick flowers from floral arrangements which are taken from an area such as a roundabout which is maintained by the local authority.
The same rules apply for flowers which have been planted by a local community group or charity with permission of the council.
Persistent taking of flowers could result in you being banned from local parks. Being charged with theft is also a possibility if you were to persistently take flowers from a neighbour's garden.
It is not illegal to pick wild flowers. The only exception with this is rare or endangered flowers, in which taking them could result in a prosecution under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act.
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