Girl, 5, left sobbing after heartless council workers fine her £150 for selling LEMONADE without a permit

HEARTLESS council jobsworths reduced a five-year-old girl to tears by shutting down her homemade lemonade stall.

The little lass set up a stall selling the homemade fizzy drink to music lovers heading to Lovebox festival in East London on Saturday.

But the tot had her stall shut down by the local council and slapped with the £150 fine.

Andre Spicer said his daughter burst into tears when enforcement officers from Tower Hamlets council arrived to say they were “trading without a permit” near their home in Mile End.

The dad and professor at City, University of London, said: “People were so happy, they thought she was so cute and called her a ‘little grafter’.

“It’s not like she was trying to make a massive profit, this is just a five-year-old kid trying to sell lemonade.

“She started screaming and crying. She sobbed all the way home and was telling me: ‘Dad, I’ve done a bad thing’.”

The professor said four officers stormed up to the table just 30 minutes after the pair had set up the stand, reading from a script.

He said: “When you’re five you think an authority figure is always right.

“She was very upset because she was proud of selling it and this really soured the experience.

“Things like this are common in America.

“When I shared our experience with he told me this would be a national scandal.”

A spokeswoman for the local authority said: “We are very sorry that this has happened.

“We expect our enforcement officers to show common sense, and to use their powers sensibly. This clearly did not happen.

“The fine will be cancelled immediately and we will be contacting Professor Spicer and his daughter to apologise.”

Andre told his daughter they’d set up another stall when they had a permit but she replied: “No. It’s too scary.”

It comes weeks after jobsworth council officers left two children in tears by banning their trampoline over health and safety fears.

A fun-loving pensioner was also targeted by council chiefs who branded his two garden gnomes a health and safety risk because they moon at motorists who drive past his home.

Laurence Perry, 77, put the bottom-baring ornaments in a bid to cheer up his neighbourhood in Cheshire.

However he received  a “heavy-handed” letter from the council ordering him to remove the offending items within seven days or workmen would do it – and bill him for the cost.

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