Most Bizarre Fines Ever

1. The driver who was fined for blowing his nose during traffic jam

A businessman was fined £60 and had his driving license endorsed for blowing his nose while stuck in a traffic jam. Michael Mancini, a furniture restorer from Prestwick, Ayrshire, was given the fixed penalty and docked three penalty points after leaning over and pulling out a paper handkerchief to wipe his nose when stuck in Ayr High Street.
Mancini said that his van was in neutral with its handbrake on, and that he was flabbergasted when he was signaled into a parking bay by an approaching policeman. Matters became “a little bit surreal”, he said, when he wound down his window and was promptly charged by the stern-faced PC Stuart Gray, a man known locally as “Shiny Buttons” in recognition of his zealous attention to detail. “I honestly thought it was a joke,” said Mancini, 39, who was booked for failing to be in control of his vehicle.

2. The man who was fined for crashing a motorized armchair

With a stereo, headlights and the ability to travel 20mph, this isn't a run-of-the-mill armchair.

Inventive Dennis Anderson combined a powerful lawnmower with a cushy recliner to build this bizarre vehicle. However, the 61-year-old's fun came to an end after he decided to drive it home after a drinking session at his local pub. Anderson lost control of the vehicle, which boasts an eight-horsepower engine, and crashed it into a parked car. Officers said Anderson, who injured his leg, was ‘clearly intoxicated' and had a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. He has been handed a 180-day suspended jail sentence and a £1,200 fine. As it was his second drink-drive incident, the armchair was confiscated and has been set aside for a police auction.

3. The woman who was fined for having too noisy sex

For two years Kerry Norris, 29, and boyfriend Adam Hinton, regularly embarrassed neighbours with their all-night love-making. The couple yelled out obscenities while the headboard would bang against the wall until 6am. Finally Norris was prosecuted by Brighton and Hove City Council for ignoring a noise abatement notice. Next door neighbour Richard Powell told magistrates: "The headboard bangs on the wall as they are having sex and it keeps me awake all night." "I have had to take days off work because of the lack of sleep." Richard's wife Sarah said she had to move her children to the front room of their home because of the noise. And Michelle Tyrrell said her four year-old daughter was kept awake by the sounds of the couple having sex. Norris would also sunbathe naked in the garden in full view of workmen.

Tony Waller, defending Norris, said she was getting the blame for noise made by other tenants. But magistrates fined her £200 plus £100 costs, and told her to pay a £15 "victim surcharge".

4. The Swiss man who was fined $9500 for questioning Anne Frank's diary

A former regional president of the far-right Party of Nationally Oriented Swiss has been fined just over SFr 10,000 ($9,500) for claiming Anne Frank's diary was a fake. In June 2009, the 22-year-old ex-leader of the Basel branch of the extremist party had written an article called “The lies around Anne Frank”, in which he branded the diary of the young Jewish girl a “historical lie”. The young man has been fined for racial discrimination. He referred to an article published in 1980 in the German news magazine Der Spiegel, which questioned the authenticity of the diary. The Spiegel article mentioned an expert's report by the German Federal Criminal Police. The same authority led an investigation in 2006 which cleared all doubts on the diary's authenticity. The president of the Basel court said the accused had infringed the federal law against racism and his assertions were like a slap in the face of the victims.

Anne Frank died aged 15 in March 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, having lived most of her life in Amsterdam. From July 1942 to August 1944, she and her family lived in hiding in a secret annex. Anne kept a diary, which was found and published after her death.

5. The woman who was fined for defaming husband's manhood

Vandana Gurjar filed for divorce from her husband Hemant Chhalotre in Madhya Pradesh, India. Her grounds for the action included Chhalotre's impotence. That was a mistake. He turned around and sued Gurjar for defamation, and she was ordered to pay 200,000 rupees (£2,747)! Mr Chhalotre had complained the impotence accusation “rendered him unmarriageable and sullied his prestige”. The amount of the fine far exceeds the annual income of millions living in India.

6. The couple who got fined for drinking juice in public

In 2008, a Russian woman and a Lebanese man were put on trial in Dubai for drinking orange juice! In accordance with the Federal Penal Code of the United Arab Emirates, a public intake of food and beverages during daytime hours of the month of Ramadan is forbidden by Article 313. The article stipulates the punishment in the form of either a monetary penalty – up to 2,000 dirhems ($555) – or even a term of up to one month in prison.The young people told the court that they were not Muslims and were unaware of the fact that their actions could be punishable. The court took the mitigating circumstances into consideration, but found the defendants guilty, since ignorance did not exclude responsibility. The court ruled that the young people had to pay the fine of 1,000 dirhems ($278) each.

7. The couple who got a fine for choosing the name of their child (the name was: Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116)

In 1991, Elisabeth Hallin and Lasse Diding wanted to protest the naming law of Sweden, which states that the court can disapprove of names that "for some obvious reason are not suitable as a first name." They were fined 5,000 kronor (about $680 at the time) for naming their son Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 (Pronounced "albin"). The parents claimed that the 43-character name was "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation." The court didn't buy it and upheld the fine. Then the parents tried to resubmit the name as "A" (yes, one letter - also pronounced "albin"). The court didn't buy that either, saying that one letter names are prohibited. The baby finally went with "Albin Hallin" though in his passport his name was given as "Icke namngivet gossebarn" meaning "unnamed little boy."

8. The man who got a 650,000 Euros fine for driving too fast

In August 2010, a speeding Swedish driver faced the world's biggest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros after being clocked at 180mph while driving through Switzerland. The 37-year-old man's £140,000 Mercedes SLS AMG was impounded along with his driving license after soaring at two and-a-half times the speed limit on a Swiss motorway.

Authorities say the gargantuan fine -- reported to be the world's largest -- is due to Switzerland's unusual traffic laws, which calculate fines on both the severity of the offense and the offender's income level. Though police could not confirm whether or not the driver's speed was a record, they "have no record of anyone being caught traveling faster in the country," a police spokesman said. The driver, who was traveling between Bern and Lausanne, defended himself by saying he thought "the [speedometer] on the car, which was new, was faulty."

9. The NFL player who got a $25K for Tweeting during a game

The NFL fined Chad Ochocinco $25,000 for possessing an electronic device and posting messages to his Twitter account during Cincinnati's 22-9 preseason win over Philadelphia. Ochocinco's Twitter feed (@OGOchoCinco) was updated prior to kickoff with the message: "Just talk with Kelly Washington , Desean Jackson, Geoff Pope, Hank Baskett and I caught a ball from Mike Vick, I love pre-game warm up." Ochocinco then tweeted again at 9:53 p.m. ET, approximately two hours after the game began, commenting on a play from the first half where he was hit hard by a pair of Eagles defenders while trying to catch a pass: "Man Im sick of getting hit like that , its the damn preseason s**t! 1day I'm gone jump up and start throwing hay makers , #Tylenolplease." The league has a social-media ban in place for gamedays, before kickoff until after postgame interviews. Ochocinco had two catches for 29 yards in Cincinnati's win.

10. The company who was fined for hiring illegal immigrants to build border fence

Ah, the irony: The Golden State Fence company, whose work is to build the border fence between San Diego and Mexico, were fined $5 million for hiring illegal immigrants to build the fence! After an immigration check in 1999 found undocumented workers on its payroll, Golden State promised to clean house. But when followup checks were made in 2004 and 2005, some of those same illegal workers were still on the job. In fact, as many as a third of the company's 750 workers may have been in the country illegally.

11. The motorcyclist who was fined for wearing an outdoor grill while riding

After having been photographed riding along a motorway with a barbecue strapped to his body, motorcyclist Michael Wiles, 29, was fined in an Australian court for careless driving. Wiles, was seen on Melbourne's busy Eastern Freeway effectively "wearing" the barbecue as he carried it home after finding it by the side of the road. He had inserted his body through the wooden frame and was peering through a protruding steel grate to see his way as he drove along at speeds of up to 46 mph. Police investigated after his antics were photographed from a passing car. The picture later found its way on to the internet and was widely circulated in emails. When in court, his defense lawyer said Mr Wiles's excuse was "lack of thought processes" at the time and poverty. "It turned out the barbecue was a dud and did not work, and that's probably why it was at the side of the road," Mr McClure said.

Wiles was later approached by a barbecue company to appear in an advertisement after his photograph was published but he had declined to do so. He was fined A$800 (£458) and disqualified him from driving for one month.

12. The man who got a $5K fine for having a home garden

His neighbors call it "Cabbagegate." And it cost Steve Miller a lot of green. The Clarkston, Ga., man was fined $5,200 for growing too many vegetables in his backyard. Miller had been growing legumes for 15 years, selling them at local farmer markets and giving them away to friends, before he was cited by the Dekalb County Code Enforcement office for the first time. It's illegal to garden at such a level in the zone where he lives. Miller tried to challenge the penalty, but a reprieve was slow in coming, and the fight's not over. After a long legal battle, Miller successfully rezoned his land. But despite that victory, the county is still fining him for all of his illicit vegetables, and even for hiring workers to weed the fallow land after he stopped working it.

Miller had no idea that growing vegetables on his land was illegal -- in fact, he purchased the plot because he knew people had grown vegetables for profit there in the past.

Tweet