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A taxi driver accused of smoking in his car by litter squad Kingdom won a legal fight against the controversial firm .

Chris Jones insisted he was using an e-cigarette when collared by an officer from the "hated" so-called 'litter police' .

He was found guilty by magistrates of smoking in a smoke free place and hit with a bill totalling more than £600.

But the 63-year-old wasn't prepared to admit defeat, so hired solicitors to help him challenge Kingdom and Wirral Council .

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

Mr Jones also asked members of action group Wirral Against Litter Police to support him in preparing an appeal.

The private hire driver, from Birkenhead , told the ECHO he believed he was "stitched up" from the beginning.

He was approached by a Kingdom officer when sitting in his car in Bebington Road, Tranmere on October 26 last year.

Mr Jones said: "I finished an e-cigarette and I was just checking my phone.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

"He said ‘I saw you smoking and you threw the cigarette out the car’. He said there was a cigarette on the floor.

"It wasn't lit, but he picked it up off the floor and said 'you dropped this'.

"I never had a cigarette in the car, plus it was the wrong brand - I've never smoked rollies.

"I said 'how long ago did I drop it?' ‘Two minutes ago’ he said, so I said 'why's it's not smoking then?’

"He knew it was an e-cigarette I had been smoking - he just wanted to get his bonus."

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The driver said the Kingdom officer was accompanied by a large security guard, who was a witness in the case.

Mr Jones was convicted by magistrates after a trial, when he represented himself, but said he was too "hot-headed".

The self-employed worker was fined £300 and told to pay £300 court costs at Sefton Magistrates' Court.

Still feeling aggrieved and adamant he had done nothing wrong, he enlisted solicitors from Davison Flynn Duke.

He then won an appeal at Liverpool Crown Court after the Kingdom witness at the centre of the dispute failed to attend.

The primary witness said he felt "intimidated" on a previous occasion and a prosecutor for Wirral Borough Council offered no evidence.

Mr Jones said he was accompanied at the previous hearing by three people from Wirral Against Litter Police.

He said: "One was 71 and used to be in 'Ban the Bomb' in the '50s, there was a little fella with me and another woman.

(Image: Liverpool Echo)

"The two witnesses, one was 6ft odd and a kickboxer, he does the doors in town. Intimidated?

"I had to do it. It was for all the old people that can't afford to do it, sitting without gas or electricity or going without their food to pay the fines.

"I could have said 'nah, I'll pay the fine'. But I thought 'no, it's wrong'."

Kingdom has since been dumped out of Wirral for good, after the firm's contract with the council was terminated early .

It had an agreement with the council running until 2021, but following a public backlash, this was scrapped in March.

Incidents included a shop owner fined £300 for going to put chocolate packaging, a sandwich wrapper and newspaper in a bin .

Wirral Council said it was a mutual termination, and not a "sacking", with Kingdom reportedly "happy to walk away".

The ECHO reported that the company complained it was "unable to guarantee the safety of staff" on the streets.

That followed what the authority called a "series of incidents and many, many threats on social media".

Kingdom was also thrown out of Liverpool last year, after a video emerged of its officers stalking a pensioner at a bus stop .